The Waning
by RobinRocks
Summary: USUK. Halloween fic. In his bid to escape the brutal Halloween tradition of The Waning, vampire Arthur Kirkland sews himself a cadaver groom intended to be his ticket out of the Land of the Banished. Unfortunately for him, Alfred has a mind - and objectives - of his own. Loosely based on the 2010 Halloween designs.
1. I

So it's almost Halloween again and I thought I'd get off to an early start this year, given that this fic will likely be a few chapters and may run into November/December. Ah, well, they're all dark-nighted wintery months so never mind!

Like last year's _To New Mutiny_, this is based loosely on Himaruya's 2010 Halloween designs - although I took something of a liberty with Alfred. Again. (And also Antonio and Lovino, who I don't believe had designs...?)

In other news, I was going to write something highbrow and subtly creepy this year... but then I wrote this instead. XD

The Waning

Part I

"Isn't he beautiful?"

Arthur Kirkland, who (being a vampire) was something of an expert on this sort of thing, said this fondly of the young man lying in the coffin, his white hands clasped across his chest.

"Look," Arthur went on pointedly, "I even went to the trouble of dressing him nicely for the occasion."

Francis eyed the powder-blue morning suit with distaste.

"Mon ami," he sighed, watching Arthur lean over the coffin to make a few last adjustments to the corpse, "how do I say this...?" He cleared his throat. "It reeks of desperation."

"Oh, bugger off," Arthur snapped, flipping him off. "I wanted him to be perfect. What, pray tell, is so wrong with that?"

Francis, floating a foot or so off the ground - an irritating habit of his - looked into the coffin. He seemed disgusted - which Arthur thought was rather rude given that all three of them were as dead as doornails.

"I cannot deny that he has a nice face," he said, "and that your picking and choosing is... impeccable, but... is this really your idea of _perfection_?"

Arthur looked at him pithily, his green eyes lemon-sharp.

"You know perfectly well that this is to serve a _purpose_." He waved his hand vaguely at the coffin. "Besides, what are a few scars here and there?"

"Aren't you worried about him... ah, falling apart?"

"That's a snide remark about my sewing skills, I expect?" Arthur scoffed. "Fret not-"

"Oh, _I'm _not fretting. You're the one who'll be bringing your husband back from your honeymoon in a box."

"_He'll be fine_," Arthur bit out. "Besides, there is to be no honeymoon. As I said, this all serves a purpose."

"I should hope so. You may be ugly, mon ami, but I'm certain that even you would have been able to find a suitorthat didn't require assembly _somewhere_."

"You'd think." Arthur grinned, his pointed teeth flashing white in the curl of it. "Unfortunately I do have rather a bad habit of devouring my lovers." He motioned to the corpse. "This is the only solution. He's already dead. He hasn't any blood. He's a man - or, well, several parts of several men." He gave a satisfied nod. "Nothing about him entices me whatsoever."

"That seems very unfair on him," Francis murmured. "And such a pretty face. Where did you get his head, I wonder?"

"Oh, that one I killed myself. I liked the look of him, far more than anything I saw poking around in the morgues." Arthur gave another wave of his hand. "The rest of him is bits and pieces of criminals and cadavers."

He looked at his gold pocket watch; then at Francis.

"It's almost midnight, you useless ghoul," he said coldly. "Are you going to marry us or what?"

Francis shook his head at the patchwork body lying blissfully oblivious in the coffin.

"I feel most sorry for you," he said with sympathy. "You haven't much to look forward to."

"Oh, stop that," Arthur sighed impatiently. "He'll awaken with bad omens about me and then I'll never get what I want!"

"There's no need to tiptoe around the issue with me," Francis said. "I know what you're up to. This is your bid to escape The Waning."

Arthur raised his chin in defiance.

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked bitterly. "I am in my five hundredth year - old enough to be admitted to the Court of Bones, the only safe haven. It is not easy for we vampires - we are slaughtered in our hundreds during Hallowmas. We cannot hide as easily as ghosts like yourself; and the humans find us better sport besides." He gave a sour smile. "You don't get the crack and crunch and splatter with a ghost. They remain somewhat impervious to baseball bats and assault rifles. Vampires and werewolves and witches are far more fun."

"You have survived this long," Francis pointed out; though it was grim, quiet.

"Often at the expense of others." Arthur shook his head. "If there is an escape, it seems foolish not to take it."

Francis glanced pointedly toward the coffin.

"At _his _expense, you mean."

"So what?" Arthur gave an impatient snort. "I don't owe him anything. He's not even alive!"

"Not yet."

"Yes, well, as to that..." Arthur went into his pocket, pulling out two mismatched rings; pried, likely, from the stiffening fingers of his victims. "When you're _quite _finished wasting my time. I haven't eaten in three days."

Francis rolled his eyes.

"I'm certain I have some sort of moral dilemma regarding this," he muttered. "Well, then, mon cher... Are you ready to be married?"

"Quite ready." Arthur took a moment to fluff up his cravat and straighten his heavy velvet cloak; before reaching into the coffin and entwining his hand his that of his patchwork creation (and god only knew whose hand it really was, at that). "Go on, then; I haven't got all night!"

Francis gave a dry smile.

"A pleasure, Arthur, as always."

So by the peppermint moon, huge and round in the sky behind the inky blots of skeleton trees, Francis married Arthur to his madcap scheme and wished him all the very best with it; being as it was that Arthur was having some trouble jamming the ring onto the finger of his cadaver groom.

"It's probably swollen," Francis said helpfully. "Corpses tend to do that."

"I know that!" Arthur said crossly, twisting the ring back and forth over the knuckle. "Stop distracting me!"

"You could cut the finger off, put the ring on that way and then sew it back on."

"For Hell's sake, will you stop leaning _through _my bloody shoulder!"

"I am only trying to help."

"Well, I don't need _your _help," Arthur said crossly, managing with a final shove to get the ring over the knuckle and down. He breathed a sigh of relief, watching as the corpse began to stir. "...I only need _his_."

The young man in the coffin twitched once or twice; then his ribcage shook and he took a breath, gasping, rattling. Arthur smiled (almost fondly, Francis thought) as he leaned toward him, touching his face; and the revived corpse opened his eyes with a start. They were very blue, Francis noted, and fathomed that this had been the reason for Arthur's taking of his head, for he was quite the lover of brilliant jewels and things which held their colour.

"Good evening, Alfred," Arthur said pleasantly; the name, so he said, picked out with great care, although Francis didn't care to listen to the reason why. "...Forgive me, I don't know how proper it is to say "Welcome Back"."

Alfred was staring at him bewilderment. He looked terribly disorientated, which wasn't altogether surprising, and Francis found himself wondering if he could even understand what Arthur was saying. He recoiled, looking frightened, when Arthur tried to touch his cheek a second time.

"It's alright," Arthur assured him, perhaps a little too confidently; he held up his hand to show him his ring. "We're married. You're my husband."

"Arthur, you are most certainly going to scare him off, I fear."

"I don't see any point in beating around the bush." Arthur looked to Francis in irritation. "Do go away, won't you? You've served your purpose."

Francis gave a dry smile.

"As always, you are quick to dismiss me. Vampires are always so very selfish." He bowed. "Very well, you horrid creature, I shall leave you with your plaything - but I will return on Hallow's Eve and I shall want my payment."

"You have my word," Arthur said pithily. "I shall have a body for you."

"See that you do." Francis gave a nod and vanished with a sound like a hollow bell.

Glad to be rid of him, Arthur turned back to Alfred - who was tensed in horror as though he planned on bolting for it.

"Now then," Arthur said briskly, all business, "it won't do us much good to sit out here in the woods all night, my dear one." He took Alfred's hand and patted it. "Shall we go home?"

Alfred looked at him, wide-eyed, his mouth a little open.

"I do have a home, of course," Arthur went on, "and I think you'll be quite comfortable. You'll come, I expect?" He gave a little laugh. "Well, I suppose you haven't anywhere else to go - except for the graveyard."

Taking Alfred rather firmly by the elbow, he bodily lifted him to his feet, helping him to step out of the coffin; Alfred came without much complaint, although he eyed Arthur warily the entire time. He wasn't terribly steady on his feet, either, which Arthur found when all six foot of him stumbled awkwardly into his shoulder.

"There, now." Arthur righted him. "It's alright, it's not unexpected. Who knows how long those legs of yours have been dead for!"

Alfred still said nothing, merely stared at him a little blankly, and Arthur felt his patience begin to wear somewhat thin.

"Well," he said with a cough, "we ought to head home. I need to go out hunting and the gate remains open only until three o' clock. I'll get you settled first, of course." He took Alfred tightly by the hand, pulling him. "Come along."

Alfred stumbled along after him, quiet as they weaved through the trees with their long thin trunks and over the rustle of dead leaves; and the moon was bright and the light silver, the air woody and damp and with a bit of a bite.

"I know it's our wedding night," Arthur said, more to himself (for he was now past expecting an answer from Alfred), "but I haven't eaten for quite a few nights, you see, and I'll be cranky otherwise and that's not a very good way to start our married life, is it?"

Alfred stopped. Arthur jerked to a halt, still holding hands with him; and turned back in puzzlement. Alfred was looking fixedly at their hands - at the cool glint of their unmatching rings.

"What's the matter?" Arthur asked uneasily; and _yes _of course he'd heard the warning about creating golems and the like (whatever they were calling them these days - not that Alfred was really a _golem_, as it were, given that Arthur had painstakingly hand-stitched him together) because they so often turned on their creators but Arthur thought it had been going rather swimmingly until now.

Alfred looked up at him, meeting his gaze intently.

"Hey," he said, perfectly clearly, "what's your name?"

"My... my name?" Arthur sighed out his relief with it. "My name is Arthur. Arthur Kirkland." He came a little closer, taking up Alfred's hand. "You can be Alfred Kirkland if you'd like."

Alfred frowned.

"No, I... that's not... my name, I don't..."

"Do you like the name Alfred?" Arthur didn't care much either way, given that Alfred was stuck with it; the marriage vows had been spoken with it, bound up in it.

Alfred gave a shrug.

"It'll do, I guess." He looked about him; with every moment, it seemed, growing ever more aware of himself, as though his newborn senses were flooding his stitched-up body. "Where am I?"

"The Land of the Banished," Arthur said. "This is your home now."

"And where was I before?" Again, Alfred frowned. "I... I don't remember anything, I-"

"The Other World." Arthur said this quickly, bitterly. "It doesn't matter. Come." He gave Alfred a firm tug, leading him ever deeper into the night. "Let's go home."

Home for Arthur Kirkland was a nice house in the old Colonial style at the edge of town; it was washed cream and had pillars and a porch and a front door with pretty glass panels painted with roses. Within it was well-manicured, for Arthur often spent his days cleaning it, although he rarely used the kitchen but for making cups of tea, and both bedrooms were largely unfurnished. The room Arthur used had a bed but he had stripped it and turned both the frame and mattress onto their side against the wall, for - like many vampires - he was too deeply in the habit of sleeping in his coffin. It was English, Medieval, with a smell that he loved. The rest of the room was taken up by a collection of trinkets and books and clothes amassed over the centuries, many of them souveniers from the Other Side before it had been such-

For the worlds of the living and the dead hadn't always been separated and the night of The Waning unimaginable. Personally Arthur blamed the Victorians. They had been too pragmatic, too clever, to remain frightened of monsters.

"Well, here we are." Arthur showed Alfred into the living room, all very precise in its careful mismatchedness, a Georgian period armchair here, a Tudor writing desk there. "Make yourself at home. I trust you can entertain yourself for an hour or so."

He checked his watch; it was quarter past one. He said nothing more to Alfred, only gave a brisk nod and started out of the room again, by now thinking more of his belly than his bridal bed (not that there was much intention of that, it was true - there was only room for _him _in his coffin).

"Wait!" Alfred followed him, catching hold of his cloak. "Don't leave me by myself!"

"I won't be long," Arthur said irritably, trying to pull free. "An hour at most."

"Can I come too?"

"Certainly not!" Arthur yanked his cloak from Alfred's hands. "You'd get us both killed."

"But I-"

"Good_night_, Alfred." Arthur wasn't in the mood for discussing it any further; and frankly he just left Alfred standing in the hall, slamming the door in his face.

He was hungry and he needed to get through the gate, feed and get back before it closed. It wouldn't do to get stuck on the other side, not this close to Hallowmas. They would use him for target practice, undoubtedly.

So he was quick about it, and quiet, too; he found a pair of sleeping sisters through an open bedroom window, and took from each about a half pint without waking them. Killing was reckless and made both a mess and a noise and so it was avoided like the plague if it could be helped. Arthur _could _kill, of course, and he was good at it - but he was also good at being very quiet and gentle, with the smallest of punctures, and he was in and out in ten minutes with both girls barely stirring. Nowadays only stupid or desperately hungry vampires killed their victims - and Arthur prided himself on being neither.

Alfred was sitting on the sofa with a blanket cocooned around him when Arthur returned.

"I made up the bed," he said, holding up the blanket. "I found these upstairs."

"The bed?" Arthur frowned. "Where would you get an idea like that?"

"You... you said we were married." Alfred seemed perplexed.

"Hm." Arthur merely raised his eyebrows at him. "You're awfully knowledgeable for someone who's been alive for barely two hours." He paused; then added heartlessly, "...Not that _alive _is exactly the right word."

He wandered out of the room, starting for the staircase; again Alfred followed most persistently, the blanket trailing after him.

"Now listen here," Arthur said, growing annoyed, "I sleep in a coffin, alright? It's my coffin that I was buried in and it only has room for me-"

"_You're _the one who married _me_," Alfred pointed out. "It's not like I just turned up on your doorstep. You _made _me, I-"

"Precisely." Alfred paused at the doorframe, turning to Alfred. "And so we're going to do this _my _way."

"This isn't fair," Alfred complained reedily, clutching the blanket. "I wake up in the middle of the forest with a ring on my finger, a vampire saying that we're married and no memory of anything else! I haven't got much choice but to trust you, Arthur-"

"Oh, I don't know that I'd do _that_," Arthur sighed, turning away. He pushed down the handle to the bedroom door, letting it creak open. "_Goodni_-"

He stopped dead on the threshold. Alfred hadn't been joking about the bed, having pulled it away from the wall and set it upright in the middle of the room. It was thrown over with pillows and blankets, messy but inviting. Nonetheless, Arthur looked about for his coffin, locating it propped in the corner.

"Did I give you permission to rearrange my house?" he asked crossly of Alfred.

"Well, where was _I _supposed to sleep?"

"The sofa, the bloody _floor_, I don't know...!" Arthur threw off his cloak and stomped to the corner to retrieve his coffin, dragging it out. There wasn't much room for it now - and he found himself crunching it in alongside the heavy bedstead.

"What do you want with me?" Alfred asked, his voice suddenly rather hard. "What am I to you, Arthur?"

_A way out._

Arthur didn't say this, of course, instead making quite the show of flouncing to the balding velvet fainting couch in the corner; this was set before the dressing table, aglitter with Arthur's collected menagerie. The mirror was draped over with a black lace shawl - he had no reflection, naturally, and didn't see the point in wasting time with it. He sank onto the couch, folding his legs up beneath himself, and started to undecorate, his ruby tie pin and silver cufflinks clattering amidst the hoarde of other treasures.

He said nothing.

"_Hey_," Alfred said; low, upset. "Are you going to answer me?"

"Well," Arthur sighed at him, "what would you like me to say? That I wanted a husband to share a home with? That I saw you in a dream once and made you in that image?" He snorted. "That I want to be _happy_?"

"...Don't you?"

"Oh, I do," Arthur said, sparing him a glance. "But not with you."

Alfred looked hurt.

"Why are you being like this?" he asked quietly. "You... you were nice before, when I first awoke, and now-"

"I'm afraid these are my true colours," Arthur interrupted coldly. "I've eaten, you see; it brings out the worst in us - but then my nature by design is unpleasant. I apologise that you saw that airy-fairy nonsense before. I shall try not to call you "my dear one" again."

"You won't." Alfred seized hold of the ring on his finger, twisting it savagely. "I'm not sticking around. I don't care if you made me, I'm not staying here another _minute_!"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Arthur said, turning to him.

"Shut up! You're not my owner, you're not my husband, you're just a spoilt little vampire bratling and you can go to Hell!" Alfred managed to tug the ring off, throwing it at Arthur's head-

"Oh, dear, I _did _tell you," Arthur said calmly as the light went out of Alfred's blue eyes and his stitched-up body crumpled. He hit the carpet in a heap, utterly lifeless.

Arthur rather felt that he didn't have time for this. He bent to pick up the ring and rose gracefully, padding to Alfred's corpse; he knelt and sharply twisted the ring back onto the fourth finger. Alfred shuddered and gave a gasp, awakening to look up at Arthur with a rather disorientated look on his face.

"I'm not going to crow over you," Arthur said tersely, holding up his own ring. "Let me put it simply. I took vows onyour behalf: Until death do we part. You're a collection of corpses - you're already dead. I'm a vampire - I'm already dead. ...Do you see the issue?"

Alfred said nothing, merely glanced at his own hand, shackled by a silver band.

"There's no ending clause if we're both dead already," Arthur went on impatiently. "You are bound to me by those vows; they are what grant you sentience, if not life. If you remove that ring, you go back to being a rather fetching collection of body parts." He shrugged. "The choice is yours, of course."

Alfred was quiet, fidgeting with his ring. He looked miserable, his shoulders hunched.

"Well, do let me know if you want me to take you back to the graveyard," Arthur said crisply, patting Alfred's knee. He stood up and stepped past.

"You can still go to Hell," Alfred mumbled.

"Oh, goodness," Arthur said tiredly, "I'm already here. We both are."

He smiled acidly at him.

"Welcome."

* * *

That nonsense about the sun turning vampires to ash was just that: nonense. Nonetheless, Arthur was not a fan of the daylight, for it gave him a headache and made him exceedingly grouchy - and so he was most certainly unthrilled when Alfred rudely pried the lid off his coffin and he got a faceful of sunshine. He rolled over with a hiss deep in the back of his throat, burying his face in his blanket.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he wailed angrily from beneath it.

"Rise and shine!" Alfred said, so cheerfully that Arthur suspected it to be sarcastic. "Time to get up!"

"I'm a _vampire_," Arthur said witheringly, lifting the blanket just a little to glare up at him. "I'm nocturnal."

"Well, I'm not," Alfred said decidedly. "And I want breakfast - so get up!"

He took hold of the underside of Arthur's coffin and tipped it up; Arthur tumbled out onto the carpet in a flail of limbs and clinging blankets.

"For Hell's sake, don't just throw me around!" Arthur shrilled, righting himself; he was still clutching the blanket, covering himself in his thin pyjamas.

"Hey, it's your own damned fault," Alfred said, shrugging. "If you weren't such a little bitch and we'd ha d a _proper _wedding night, we'd have woken up all cuddled up together and I wouldn't have had to shake you out of your box like a stubborn match!"

"Vampires sleep in their coffins!" Arthur glared at him. "And I'm not sharing it _or _a bed with the likes of you!"

"You should have thought of that before you married me." Alfred prodded at him with his foot. "Now get up, I'm hungry!"

"Why do I have to make it for you?!"

"You don't - but there's no food in your cupboards. I already looked." Alfred pulled a face. "Just twenty boxes of tea and a bottle of blood in the fridge."

Arthur groaned, putting his blanket over his head. He had completely forgotten that Alfred wouldn't survive on a vampire's diet supplemented with cups of tea - althought admittedly he hadn't put much thought into what reanimated designer corpses ate at all.

"I guess you didn't think ahead this far, huh?" Alfred mused.

"Shut up!" Arthur crossly threw off the blanket and got up, stomping to his bookshelf. He reached to pull down the heavy volume bound in red leather, taking it to the dresser; and he curled up on the couch in his black silk pyjamas with the book on his lap, leafing through it for the particular spell he had followed.

_Reanimated Bride or Groom_

_- As many body parts as one should desire (or find, as the case may be). The different parts of several different persons shall equip your created spouse with the particular skills each possessed in life; furthermore, the pathwork formation will prevent your new beau from regaining the memories of the previous life experienced by the head/brain._

_- Sew together with a simple stitch using any thread you desire._

_- To bring to life, recite the wedding vows by the stroke of midnight on the night of a full moon. Binding the already-deceased to the clause 'Until death do we part' will grant life of a type; the removal of the wedding ring will reverse the effects._

This Arthur already knew; he flipped over the page in search of further information, silly manual things such as what reanimated brides and grooms ate, but there was nothing.

Well... perhaps such things fell under the zombie sub-type?

"Do you eat brains?" Arthur asked carefully, looking up at Alfred over the book.

Alfred pulled a disgusted face.

"Eww, no!" He shook his head so vigorously that for a moment Arthur was terrified that he might rip the stitches holding it on. "And before you ask, no, I don't drink blood, either!"

"How do you know?"

"I... I-I don't know, I just do!" Alfred gave an exasperated wave of his hands. "Look, I just want something normal to eat, okay? How about toast or bacon or breakfast cereal or something?!"

Arthur looked blankly at him.

"Breakfast cereal?"

"Yeah! You know what that is, right? Little crunchy corn thingies covered in sugar?"

Arthur shuddered.

"I've no idea what you're talking about," he said delicately, "but it sounds revolting."

"How... how can you not know what breakfast cereal is?" Alfred seemed baffled. "Have you been living under a rock?"

"No, I've been living in this house," Arthur said coldly. "But the last time I was alive was 1452, when I _quite _assure you there was no such thing as a 'breakfast cereal'."

"Yeah, but you've been the living-dead ever since, right? Surely you've eaten!"

"Not terribly often. I mostly survive on blood and tea. I've more or less lost my appetite for other things."

"W-well!" Alfred folded his arms indignantly. "B-but last night, you said... that this is the Land of the Banished. A-and there was that other guy with you-"

"Francis, yes." Arthur nodded, closing the book and putting it aside. He could feel the sunlight warm on the back of his neck. How irritating. "If you mean to ask if there are others... yes, naturally there are. We have our own realm."

"Right. And you're not _all _vampires, right?"

"No, of course not. There are werewolves, witches, demons, gh-"

"That's what I mean! What do _they _eat, huh?"

"Oh." Arthur paused thoughtfully. "Well, yes, I suppose there _are _establishments - and the marketplace, how could I forget." He shook his head. "Vampires are about the least human - aside from the ghosts - and so I suppose I forget these things. I tend not to go out during the day."

"So, wait... you're saying that there are like... restaurants and stores and stuff?" Alfred pressed his hands together, his stitches gleaming. "Run _by _ghouls and werewolves and whatever - _for _ghouls and werewolves and whatever?"

"Ah, yes, I suppose that's-"

"Jeez, why didn't you say so!" Alfred seized Arthur's neatly-hung clothes from the night before and threw them across the room at him. "Get dressed, Dracula! I'm starving!"

And so, despite his protests - and to his immense chagrin - Arthur Kirkland, ruthless and pragmatic vampire since the late fifteenth century, found himself traipsing down the high street at half nine in the sodding morning, dressed entirely in black and with a mood to match. Alfred darted ahead, zigzagging across the street in excitement to look in every gleaming window.

The main town square of Midnight Marches was pretty and well-kept; traditional in its look and feel, with cobblestones and wooden-framed buildings, as most of its inhabitants were rather old and comfortable in their ways. The old clock tower, jealously wound with ivy, boomed out the hours with clockwork reliability; adjacent were the library and the town hall in faded redbrick, whilst the shops were all kinds of colours and wild archictures. Transport was an eccentric collection of vehicles, from horse-and-traps to Model T Fords and just about everything else in between.

"This is so _weird_!" Alfred exclaimed, his face pressed to the glass of the bakery to survey the rows of breads and cakes and pastries. "It's just like a normal town!"

"More or less," Arthur agreed absently, glancing opposite towards the crooked little shop with cauldrons stacked precariously either side of the door and a large cage of sleeping bats in the window. "...You can remember a _normal town_?"

"Sort of." Alfred frowned. "It's hard to describe, I remember what stuff _is_, you know... but I don't remember who I was."

"_We_," Arthur corrected. "You're seven people at least."

"But _this _guy would have the memories, right?" Alfred tapped himself on the head. "Huh, I guess he must have lived someplace like this."

Arthur shrugged in disinterest.

"Perhaps." He started away. "I thought you were hungry."

"I am!" Alfred scrambled after him.

"Then let's get out of this bleeding sun."

They ended up in a small, brightly-lit cafe that Arthur knew but didn't frequent much, being more of a night-dweller. It was called _The Blood Olive _and was run by werewolves; brothers Feliciano and Lovino Vargas, who were the chefs, waiter Antonio Carriedo and manager Ludwig Beilschidt, who seemed to try and run the place with an iron fist and not get very far with it.

They were about the only customers, aside from a small gathering of warlocks in the far corner. Arthur took only a cup of tea, the steam doing a little to blot out his pounding headache, while Alfred ordered just about everything on the menu and demolished it. Feliciano and Antonio skipped happily in and out of the kitchen, seeming to enjoy the challenge of it, whilst Lovino grumbled loudly in Spanish at the back.

"So what possessed the vampire to be married after all these years?" Antonio asked cheerfully, plonking himself down next to Arthur. "I thought your kind preferred your own company?"

"I get lonely sometimes," Arthur replied stiffly. He didn't look at him.

Antonio didn't look terribly convinced; but Feliciano was more forgiving, setting a plate of eggs florentine before Alfred (who attacked it like a wild animal).

"Even vampires are known to settle down, Toni," he said. "...Eventually." He beamed at Arthur. "Was it a big wedding?"

"No, just the three of us out in the woods." Arthur rolled his eyes. "I haven't the patience for such things."

"Three?"

"Francis performed the rites. That's about all ghosts are good for."

Feliciano nodded.

"I must talk to him about marrying Ludwig and I," he said wistfully.

"The day I persuade Lovino," Antonio said, "we will go over to the Other Realm and be married properly. I know he would not want to be married to me by a ghost."

"I don't want to be married to you at all, bastard!" Lovino called angrily from the kitchen.

"Enough shouting," Ludwig said gruffly, approaching the table. "You two, back in the kitchen. We have more customers."

Feliciano scampered away, Antonio trailing languidly after him. Arthur caught Ludwig's gaze briefly before going back to his tea, distractedly pouring himself another cup.

"You're not doing a whole lot to put me at ease," Alfred said cheerily, his mouth full. "Everyone seems to think it's really weird that you suddenly decided to get married - and I gotta say I agree. You don't seem the type!"

"I wasn't aware that there is a _type_," Arthur said icily.

"Well, you don't seem to be all that interested in me." Alfred gave a shrug. "I dunno, I guess I just don't feel like your 'I'm lonely' story holds up."

"That's entirely up to y-"

"That, and..." Alfred chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Well, why'd you _make _me? You really couldn't find _anyone anywhere _that wanted to marry you?! You've been around for like four hundred years, right? I mean, your personality needs work but you're not _that _bad-looking, I guess."

"Why thank you," Arthur ground out. "And it's five hundred, actually."

Alfred shrugged, loading up another forkful of eggs and hollandaise sauce.

"Just seems odd to me, is all."

When Alfred had at last finished eating_ The Blood Olive _out of house and home, Arthur sent him outside and went to settle up with Ludwig.

"I expect you'll soon be leaving us," Ludwig observed shrewdly, taking the notes and counting out the change. "You're five hundred, aren't you?"

"I was in April, yes." Arthur smirked. "You're just like Francis. You always see right through me."

Ludwig looked across the cafe; through the window at Alfred, who was kicking a skull down the road with his hands in his pockets.

"Well," the werewolf said primly, "let us hope that _he _does not see right through you."

Arthur gave a snort.

"How could he? He doesn't even know about The Waning, never mind the All Souls Ball and the Court of Bones." He examined his nails. "Very much the method in my madness, I'm sure you'll see."

"You'll have to tell him about The Waning, at the very least," Ludwig said calmly, handing him his coins.

"I will. It wouldn't at all do for him to be killed, would it?" Arthur grinned. "...At least not before I can make use of it."

* * *

"Hey." Alfred leaned around the sitting room door. "Arthur."

"What?" Arthur asked absently; he was curled up in his armchair before the fire, engrossed in a book.

"I, uh... have a little problem."

"And what's that?"

"My hand fell off." Sidling into the room, Alfred held it out. "Can you... um, sew it back on for me?"

Arthur lowered his book.

"What on earth were you doing?" he asked.

"Trying to get the bedroom window open."

"_Why_?" Arthur went on witheringly; he went to get his sewing box from the cabinet. "Don't tell me you were trying to run away."

"Not run _away_. I was gonna come back." Alfred shrugged, coming to the rug before the fire and plonking himself down. "I just wanted to go out for a bit. I'm bored cooped up in here."

"There's a _front door_."

"I didn't want you to hear me. You seem like a nag."

Arthur simply rolled his eyes at this, kneeling on the rug with the little wooden box open at his side. He threaded up a needle and took the hand from Alfred, lining it up with his wrist.

"You've really got to be more careful," he scolded. "You're lucky it was the right hand and not the left. Remember what I told you about your ring-"

"I knew it. You're a nag."

"I mean it!" Arthur jabbed him with the needle, making him yelp. "You'd have been lying up there for hours."

"Why, were you going to stay down here all night?" Alfred seemed surprised.

"I _told _you, I'm nocturnal." Arthur scowled up at him as he stitched. "Well, I'd very much _like _to be. You've certainly gone out of your way to make it hard for me."

"Hey, I let you nap today, didn't I?!"

"Oh, _most _generous of you, I'm sure."

"Are you not going out hunting tonight?"

"No, I'm not hungry. I made sure to feed well last night." Arthur gave a little sigh. "Long gone are the days of luxury, feeding every night. I haven't even killed a victim in a very long time."

"Why's that?" Alfred seemed genuinely curious.

"Sense. It's dangerous to be a vampire in this day and age." Arthur paused. "Well, not just a vampire, admittedly. _Anything _that isn't human."

"Why?"

"Because of the All Saints Army. After the war ended in 1945, you know, they thought they'd turn their attention to... well, other evils, as it were." Arthur snorted. "It's funny, isn't it? I very much doubt, in the entire five hundred years I've been a vampire, that I've killed as many as any bomb dropped during the war."

"But you have killed."

"Of course."

Arthur met his gaze; Alfred was looking at him very intently, his expression hard to gauge.

"Did you kill any part of me?" he asked.

"No." Arthur went back to his sewing. "You're mostly medical cadavers, with a few executed criminals thrown in."

"Huh."

"Are you disappointed?"

"Not really. I just thought maybe you'd know who I was." Alfred frowned. "Or, at least, who _some _of me was."

"I'm afraid not." Arthur playing with his fingertips. "...Nice hands, though, don't you think? I chose them because I liked them."

"Heh." Alfred grinned. "So I _am _designed to your specifications."

"Something like that," Arthur said archly. "Although I'll thank you not to go getting ridiculous notions about the nature of our relationship."

"Well, at least I'm not a sex slave." Alfred paused, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "...I'm not a sex slave, right? You haven't made a pass at me yet-"

"You're not a sex slave, Alfred." Arthur said this with crispness, impatience, and added nothing further.

The fire cracked and spat. Alfred shifted.

"And, uh... are you _ever _gonna tell me why you created me?" he asked.

"All will be clear on Halloween," Arthur sighed, "otherwise known as the night of The Waning."

Alfred gave an impatient snort.

"Halloween's ages away," he complained. "And what's-"

"Actually, it's little more than a week from tonight," Arthur said, tying off the thread and cutting it with a quick snap of his pointed teeth.

He glanced up at Alfred slyly.

"...I trust you can wait until then."

* * *

Hope everyone likes it so far! Next chapter will be posted on Halloween!

ONE WEEK TO GO!


	2. II

Whoo, it's Halloween! Spooky and spectacular greetings, everyone! Hope you're all having fun! Some chums and I spent our Halloween evening up to the eyeballs in mud in a zombie-infested corn maze (like literally the mud was past the ankles in some parts). Almost went down a few times, NOT a good look in a Sweeney Todd costume, haha! GOOD TIMES, GOOD TIMES. :3

A special spooky thank you to: **The Fangirl With A 1000 Names, JL27, Glass case, Guest, octopus, Marichinocherry, Winter-Grown-Lily, i Mel-chan i, KitsuneMagic48, Empress Vegah, Warpath Grizzly, Hetalia-FACE-Girl **and **AEngland**!

Now let's have some fun with ghosties and vampires and Frankenhusbands!

The Waning

II

"And how is married life treating you so far, mon ami?"

The amusement in Francis' voice was crystal clear, painfully so. Arthur did his very best to turn his nose up at him, stirring distractedly at his tea. They were sitting in Arthur's neat, sparse kitchen, the dusk drawing in around the orange lamplight.

"Oh, alright, you know," Arthur said vaguely. "It's only been a few days."

"How was the wedding night? I hope you kept the sewing kit to hand."

"Oh, bugger _off_." Arthur glared at him. "Don't be so disgusting. Of course I slept in my coffin the way I do every night."

Francis laughed.

"I always thought it was a rumour that vampires had very little sexual appetite!" He peered at Arthur. "Unless you are exceptional."

"We are well-versed in the pretence," Arthur said archly, "for ease of luring victims. The appetite itself is near non-existent - and Alfred, though I made him to my preferences, does not rouse it."

"And he?"

"Well," Arthur said delicately, "he hasn't got any blood... or, well, much of anything else, so I doubt he'd be capable of performing."

Francis raised his eyebrows.

"But he has settled in well otherwise?"

"As well as can be expected. We get along alright, I suppose, and I admit he's taken the whole thing in good spirit. I had feared he might have had some sort of existential crisis by now." Arthur's green eyes darkened. "...I suppose, when it comes down to it, he _is _rather simple-minded."

Francis paused, looking hard at Arthur; watching him reach for the little jug of blood and pour a splash or two into his teacup. The rose-bloom settled at the bottom of the porcelain.

"Arthur," the ghost said, low-voiced, "I confess that something has been preying on my mind since that night. You recall I asked you where you got his head...?"

Arthur said nothing.

"I thought his face looked familiar," Francis pressed. "Not that I profess to show any great interest in your dalliances but... It's him, isn't it? That boy, the one you used to moon about after. The one who joined the All Saints Army."

"So what if he is?" Arthur asked sulkily, still stirring his tea; it was thick with blood by now.

"You lied that night."

"Well, it's none of your business, is it?!" Arthur was very agitated, slamming his spoon down.

"It very well might be!" Francis hissed, scandalised. "You've possibly made a fatal error, bringing one of them into our midst!"

"He doesn't remember." Arthur shot him a hard look. "And he _won't _remember, either, not with all those other body parts to contend with."

Francis groaned.

"You selfish little beast..."

"You wouldn't understand," Arthur said coldly. "Besides, he'll be dispatched soon enough."

"That's not the point-"

The key clattered in the lock of the front door, wrestling a moment with the metal; and then it swung open, banging loudly against the frame.

"It's Alfred," Arthur hissed, glaring at Francis. "Don't you dare say a _word _about-"

"Do you think I'm an idiot?!" Francis snapped. "Unlike you, I don't have a death-wish!"

"You're already dead!"

"So are you!"

"Hey, Arthur!" Alfred leaned around the kitchen door, beaming. "Ooh, hey, I remember you!" He waved at Francis. "Didn't catch your name the other night, I was kinda... disorientated."

"That's quite alright." Francis' voice and smile were both a little stiff; he rose, bowing to Alfred. "My name is Francis Bonnefoy, member of the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette."

"You _were_," Arthur reminded him nastily. "I knew Shakespeare but I don't bang on about it."

"Alas, mon cher, you often do," Francis sighed.

"It's cool that you guys can remember that stuff," Alfred said cheerfully. He came fully into the kitchen, holding up a large paper bag. "I went to that bakery on the high street, Arthur. The cakes are amazing!"

"Ah, Belle's," Francis said warmly, nodding. "Yes, she has quite the knack. Witches tend to be good at that sort of thing."

"Oh, man, I could have bought out the entire store!" Alfred pulled a few plates from the cupboard, setting them loudly on the table. "She gave me some recommendations, though. Check out these eclairs!"

They certainly were very impressive; Alfred arranged his haul - whipped cream eclairs, donuts dusted with sugar, meringues and macarons and bright little cakes with airy icing - haphazardly on the plates and plonked himself down next to Arthur.

"Anyone?" He reached for an eclair, taking a huge bite out of it. "Mm, it's _so good_."

"I wish I could," Francis said unhappily. "Unfortunately I no longer possess the necessary organs."

"Too bad." Alfred finished his eclair, wiping cream from his chin, and pushed the plate towards Arthur. "How about you, Dracula?

"You know I don't eat that sort of thing," Arthur said witheringly.

"Yeah, yeah, I _know _you're a _vampire_," Alfred replied, rolling his eyes, "but don't you get bored of blood?"

"I love blood."

"I love hamburgers," Alfred replied candidly. "Doesn't mean I'd want them for every meal."

"Oh, you wouldn't _understand_," Arthur said crossly.

"Don't mind him," Francis sighed, leaning back in his chair. "He's very dramatic. All vampires are."

"I am not _dramatic_-"

"Here, Arthur, how about this?" Alfred took up the little silver jug and poured a bright spritz of scarlet over one of the cakes. "You want it now?"

Francis was appalled to see a cake treated in such a manner; Arthur, meanwhile, was very distressed, recoiling when Alfred pushed the offending confection towards him.

"_I am a vampire_," he hissed, digging his nails into the tablecloth. "I do not partake of bloody fairy cakes!"

"Yeah, well, it's _literally _a _bloody _fairy cake," Alfred replied, "so you better eat it or it'll be a waste."

"Don't you dare speak to me like that!" Arthur wailed. "I'm a five-hundred year old killing machine, you little brat! I have drunk from the veins of _kings_!"

"Waste not, want not." Alfred started to slide the cake away. "Or shall I just throw it in the trash, delicious blood and all...?"

Arthur did eat the cake, although his manner of going about it was of one being punished, and for all Francis' uneasiness about the Alfred situation in general, the ghost couldn't help but be pleased that Arthur had not only met his match but inflicted it upon himself.

"What do you think of Midnight Marches, Alfred?" Francis asked, watching him closely.

"It's nice," Alfred replied, shrugging; he was halfway through his second donut. "I like all the cute little stores and streets and stuff, it all seems kind of... familiar."

"It's very English," Arthur said, grouchy from the humiliation of the cake.

"England, huh?" Alfred appeared to give it some thought. "You think I'm from there?"

"No, you're undoubtedly an American," Francis said. "But perhaps you spent time there?"

Arthur shot him a look; Francis didn't know how to take it.

"You know what's weird, though?" Alfred went on, oblivious. "A lot of people stare at me - which is kind of strange since I'm not all _that _odd-looking, not by the standards here!" He gave an incredulous whistle. "I saw a guy with four pairs of arms at the Post Office and a couple of centaurs outside the library." He snorted. "I mean, am I something completely new? Have they never seen a guy made up of twelve other guys all sewn together before?"

"I suppose not," Arthur said faintly. "I mean, who has the time...?"

Alfred looked at him pointedly.

"You do."

"I'm a vampire. I don't go out much."

Alfred shrugged; he didn't seem too bothered.

"Well, whatever. It just seemed a little rude, is all."

"I ought to be going," Francis said suddenly, floating out of his chair. "Arthur, I know you will be wanting to get on with your night. Would you be so kind as to show me out?"

"Of course." Arthur rose, following him around the table.

"It was nice to talk to you properly, Alfred," Francis said, waving his transparent fingers at him. "Don't let Arthur away with anything."

"Oh, I won't," Alfred said through a mouthful of meringue.

Out in the hall, Francis folded his arms as Arthur dutifully held the front door open for him (not that he needed to).

"You've really done it, you idiotic bloodsucker!" the ghost seethed. "They were staring at him because they recognised him from the All Saints Army!"

"You don't know that," Arthur replied bleakly. "Contrary to his opinion, he _is _a bit of an oddity. Patchwork reanimations are rare. Dr Frankenstein buggered it up and nobody wants to make the same mistake."

"Except you," Francis hissed, "because you're a selfish little nihilist with designs on escaping anyway and you don't give a damn."

"Oh, do be careful, Francis," Arthur said dangerously, "or I shall go back on my word about getting you a body."

Francis looked at him in disgust.

"I doubt even _you _are that low," he said.

"You don't know me very well," Arthur replied icily. "You have no idea of the lows to which I'll sink."

"Ugh." Francis looked at him in revulsion. "I hope he kills you."

"Despite our differences, I don't think you mean that," Arthur said, looking at his nails. "...But even if you do, let me mark the suggestion as terribly cruel. You see... he has already tried."

Bidding Francis a curt goodnight at this (and all but slamming the door in his etheral face), Arthur went back to the kitchen, standing in the doorway with his hands on his slender hips. Alfred was still munching happily on his array of goodies, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

"You have quite the appetite," Arthur observed, making Alfred look at him. "...Though I suppose it makes sense that you need the fuel to keep that body moving. It is, after all, more or less a corpse."

Alfred said nothing, his mouth full, but he nodded. Arthur came back to the kitchen table and sank into the seat opposite.

"Speaking of appetites, I'm going hunting tonight," he continued. "It's been a few days since I fed properly."

"Can I come?"

"Wh-what?" Arthur was quite alarmed. "Why on earth should you wish to do such a thing?"

"Because I want to see the Other World," Alfred said, almost incredulous. "That's where all the parts I'm made of come from, right?"

"I don't know that it's a terribly good idea-"

"You think I can't keep up?" Alfred grinned. "I'll hold my own no problem!"

"It's not that," Arthur admitted. "It's... well, there's the All Saints Army, not to mention how close we are to the night of The Waning-"

"The what?" Alfred frowned at him-

And for a moment Arthur held his breath, his heart pounding, terrified that Alfred somehow recognised the name, remembered it, _knew _it...

"What's that?"

Arthur breathed out. It was a little shaky.

"It's the night of All Hallow's Eve, the first day of Hallowmas," he said. "They call it Halloween on the other side."

"Oh, yeah. Spooky masks, trick-or-treating, hoardes of candy, right?"

"Ah." Arthur frowned. "For the humans, perhaps. It's... quite a different story this side of the gate."

"Uh huh." Alfred rested his chin on his hands. "Go on."

Arthur sighed.

"I suppose I'll have to tell you sooner rather than later," he muttered. "It _is _only four nights away..."

"At this rate it'll be here by the time you've told me," Alfred teased; only grinning when Arthur scowled at him. "Well, go _on_, then!"

"Oh, there's not much to it," Arthur snapped. "At the stroke of midnight on All Hallow's Eve, the human world merges with this one; this has always been the case, and the tradition of what they call Trick-or-Treating has its origins in 'Guising', whereby humans would dress in ghoulish attire to prevent vengeful spirits of the dead from knowing them. More recently, however, it's been the sport of the humans to hunt us on this night, wearing these disguises in much the same manner. Since the introduction of mechanised warfare in 1914, I must say that the tables have very much turned in the favour of the humans. The Victorians put that crosses-and-holy-water nonsense to rest but I admit that the conflict has gotten a lot bloodier since the end of the Second World War. I suppose they needed a new evil to fight."

"So what do we do?" Alfred asked. "Fight back?"

"When we must," Arthur said, "although survival is the main priority." He looked pointedly at Alfred. "I'll thank you not to do anything idiotic."

Alfred grinned.

"I wouldn't dare."

"Hmm." Arthur rose, glaring at him. "See that you don't." He started out of the kitchen. "I'm going to get ready."

"Hey, you didn't answer my question!" Alfred leapt up, scampering after him. "Can I come or what?"

Arthur frowned at him, watching him bounce excitably (irritatingly) on the balls of his feet and press his palms together in a plea.

"Oh, _alright_," Arthur grumbled, putting up his hands in defeat. "But stay close and-"

"Yeah, yeah, I will!" Alfred skipped past. "You won't regret it, Arthur!"

Incidentally, Arthur was already regretting it five minutes later when he was before his wardrobe and Alfred was bouncing impatiently on the end of the bed.

"Come on, let's _go_!" Alfred huffed. "You don't have to change your outfit!"

"I'm getting a coat," Arthur replied witheringly. "There's a bit of a bite out tonight."

"Haha, vampire pun." Alfred flopped across the bed. "Cute."

"Shut up." Arthur pulled out his old army issue trenchcoat - thick khaki wool down to the shins, with a high stiff colllar and buffed buttons - and threw it on. "I expect you don't feel the cold."

"I don't feel much of anything," Alfred agreed. "I think you botched my nervous system."

"I beg your pardon," Arthur said coldly, buttoning his coat, "but you were _bloody hard _to put together! Of course you're not going to be _perfect_-"

"Yeah, you also scrimped on the superpowers." Alfred waved his sewn-on hands limply over his head. "I mean, what do I _do_, exactly? Vampires bite and turn into bats-"

"That's a myth."

"Witches have magic, ghosts can go through stuff, werewolves... maul stuff, I guess?" Alfred puffed out his cheeks sulkily. "But what's a Frankengroom to do, huh?"

"We're fighting a war on the humans' terms, poppet," Arthur said dryly, coming to the bedside. He had a serated bayonet outstretched towards Alfred (and a heavy old pistol in the other). "We can't rely on that sort of nonsense, not when they have tanks and machine guns. See how you get on with this."

"Tch." Alfred sat up and took the knife, turning it this way and that. "And you get a gun?"

"I've had this Browning since 1916, you're not bloody getting it."

Alfred rolled his eyes in defeat.

"Fine." He stood up and deftly turned the bayonet over in his hand, sticking it in his belt. "Have all the fun."

"Oh, not _all_, I'm quite sure," Arthur replied airily. "Well, then... shall we?"

Alfred smirked.

"You bet," he drawled. "It's about time we had a honeymoon."

* * *

"Are you serious?"

Arthur scowled over his shoulder at Alfred.

"Of course," he said sharply. "Why on earth woudn't I be?"

"They're Boy Scouts. Like _literally _Boy Scouts. Camping."

"And?"

"Well, gee, I dunno!" Alfred shrugged incredulously. ""I guess I just thought when you said _hunting _you meant... well, _hunting_. You know, stalking prey between the trees, hiding in the shadows, leaping out at them when they least expect it-"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Arthur said; though he was a little bit uncomfortable on hearing this from Alfred's mouth.

That, after all, was one of the methods of the All Saints Army.

"This isn't a horror film," Arthur went on. "Now be quiet."

Alfred gave an impatient huff but fell silent. Arthur turned his attention back to the small campsite about twenty feet away, set up in a clearing in the woods. The sweet smoky smell of their fire hung low in the damp October air, the sky lit orange with the spit of it. There were about fifteen Scouts, boys between eleven and sixteen, and two older leaders. They would have guns, Arthur knew, and it wouldn't do to be reckless. He was practiced in his method by now: the quiet taking of a little blood whilst its donor was asleep was the most sensible.

The Scouts were engaged in the telling of ghost stories around the fire, however, popping chestnuts and corn, and it might be a bit of a wait. This didn't matter much to Arthur - as long as he was back at the gate for three o' clock - for vampires possessed the uncanny ability to stay perfectly still, barely breathing, for very long periods of time (an evolved response to this sort of feeding).

Alfred, however, was considerably more fidgety and it was clear that he was growing restless, constantly shifting and sighing behind Arthur.

"Do stop it," Arthur hissed. "They'll hear you."

"Sorry," Alfred grumbled. Then: "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Stay so damned still!"

"Latent ability," Arthur said, "and quite a bit of practice."

"Don't you get bored?"

"The thought of the prize quells it." Arthur frowned. "Besides, when you've been alive as long as I have, an hour or two's wait is nothing."

"Well, if you'd eat proper food, you wouldn't need to be bothered."

"I'm a _vampire_," Arthur said witheringly. "I _need _blood to survive. That's why we're sitting out here at half past one in the morning watching a Boy Scout camp."

The "we" seemed to do it for Alfred; for he stood suddenly, dusting off his hands.

"Well, I'm bored out of my skull," he said. "I'm gonna go for a little walk."

Arthur was torn, looking at him. On one hand he didn't like the thought of Alfred - naive, newborn Alfred - wandering around in the human realm this close to The Waning armed with only a bayonet; on quite the other, he was being a nuisance and Arthur was half-terrified that the Scouts were going to hear him.

Alfred, meanwhile, didn't seem to be waiting for a response, already ambling off between the trees with his hands in his pockets.

"I'll come back," he said, waving at Arthur over his shoulder. "I'll just be ten minutes or so."

"W-well, be careful!" Arthur called after him, just as loudly as he dared.

Alfred merely grinned over his shoulder at him - the brilliant white of it glinting as the shadow of the trees devoured him. Arthur let him go, too tempted by the prospect of dinner to go after him. It couldn't be long now before the Scouts finished up their ghoulish tales (each wilder than the last) and began to turn in.

Arthur checked his pocket watch and settled back against the birch, comfortable and eerily still.

He could wait.

000

Alongside the strength, speed, uncanny stillness and pointed teeth, vampires had very good senses: sight and hearing were both second to none, and so Arthur (creeping ever closer to the campsite as the boys settled in their two-and-three-man tents for the night) heard the scream as clear as a bell.

He froze, listening. The scream was quick, high-pitched, and didn't hang on the air. Cut off, then, and quickly. Someone in these woods had just been killed.

It hadn't sounded like Alfred (who had been gone for a good half an hour). Higher-pitched, probably female. Hard to know if they'd be a human or something else, though; and Arthur's good sense told him not to ignore it. Watching the campsite for movement for a moment or two, he was relieved by no response of any kind; and turned wistfully away, disappointed and more than a little hungry at this point. He moved deftly back into the forest, keeping close to the towering shapes of the bleak trees, inky-black in the night. Though the residue of the scream did not cling to the clear air, the direction had been very definite, at least to a vampire as experienced as Arthur (who took no chances and drew his rattling old Browning as he darted between the mottled trunks, clicking off the safety - because it might be humans, the All Saints Army, even, and this was the only language they spoke).

Wait. He paused. He could smell Alfred now, he had a scent of chemicals and gravesoil and rope, bitter but not unpleasant. He could also smell blood.

Cautious, the pistol raised, Arthur approached the tiny clearing deep in the very heart of the forest, every sense alight. He hadn't survived this long by being foolhardy. He emerged at the edge, finger on the trigger.

Alfred was standing with his back to him, the bayonet gleaming in his hand. Arthur's stomach gave an unpleasant twist.

"Alfred," he said quietly.

Alfred turned to him, smiling; until he saw the Browning, at which he raised both his eyebrows and his arms.

"Whoa, hi, Arty." He gave a whistle. "You wanna point that thing somewhere else?"

"You're already dead," Arthur replied coolly, stepping into the clearing; but he lowered the gun and snapped the safety back on. "What on earth are you doing?"

"Getting you some dinner, duh." Alfred proudly stepped aside, revealing the body of a young woman sprawled onthe damp leaves at his feet. "I guess she was out walking or something - weird at this time of night but whatever. She screamed but I soon shut her up."

He waved the bayonet lazily. It was red and wet in the silver light.

"I guess you heard it and came running," he went on. "Damn, that's some hearing you have."

While vampires naturally did not possess much of a reflex for being squeamish, Arthur nonetheless felt a little faint as he looked at the girl - Alfred's offering to him.

"You killed her," he said quietly, approaching, reholstering his pistol.

"Well, yeah." Alfred squinted at him, nonplussed, and held up the bayonet. "It was easy with this."

"That was for self-defense." Arthur looked at him seriously. "You shouldn't have killed her."

Alfred looked baffled.

"Uh, aren't you a vampire? Isn't... isn't that what vampires _do_?"

"By nature, yes. By practice, no. At least not if it can be helped." Arthur pressed his hand to his cheek, dismayed. "It... bloody _complicates _things, I-"

"Oh, well, in that case, let's just bury her, then!" Alfred sounded offended. "I was just trying to help!"

"I know, I know, and I thank you," Arthur said quickly. "Well, there's no need to be so drastic, it's done now..."

He knelt next to the body and lifted her up under the shoulders. She was still warm.

"I was just thinking, you know, those Boy Scouts might stay up talking all night!" Alfred went on, dropping to a crouch opposite. "Thought I'd hurry things along, you seem pretty hungry..."

"I am." Arthur gave a curt nod before biting down on the girl's throat and beginning to drink; with her already dead, he didn't have long before it began to become very difficult to get at her blood.

Alfred watched him with fascination, his blue eyes big behind his glasses. There was a fleck of blood on the right lens. He cleaned them and the bayonet on the end of his coat as Arthur fed.

"Now what?" he asked when Arthur at last lowered the corpse, breathing heavily. "You're done, right?"

Arthur nodded, wiping his bloody mouth on a silk handkerchief whipped from his pocket.

"Well," he said, "usually I don't _have _this problem... but it wouldn't be good if she was found evidently drunk dry. We ought to bury her but-"

"Didn't bring a shovel. Gotcha." Alfred tilted his head thoughtfully. "Hey, I got it!" He snapped his fingers and took out the bayonet. "We'll mutilate her so badly they won't be able to tell how she died!"

Arthur didn't say anything. Again, despite himself, he felt deeply uncomfortable, the feeling mired in the pool of his belly as he watched Alfred lift the heavy army-issue bayonet and plunge it into the girl's body without a moment's thought or hesitation.

She didn't have much blood left, it was true, but there was still a bit of a mess, splattering up Alfred's arm as he stabbed and stabbed at her, growing more frenzied with every thrust, his fingers white on the handle-

"_Stop_!" Arthur seized his arm, jarring it in place. "Please, _please _stop, Alfred."

Alfred looked at him. He looked genuinely surprised.

"Why not? I killed her, you drank her blood, there's no need to be sentimental-"

"Just stop, I beg you." Arthur didn't let go of his arm. "That's enough."

Alfred looked at him guardedly for a moment; then dropped his arm, shrugging.

"Fine." He stuck the bayonet back into his belt, getting up. "...You're a really weird vampire, Arthur."

"Yes." Arthur looked away. He found that he couldn't really argue with that. "I am a bit. I always do the... very _strangest _things."

* * *

How strange? We shall have to wait and see... o.O

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!


	3. III

Trying to keep to a weekly update schedule to get this thing done and dusted as quickly as possible. Hope nobody minds the Halloween theme even as things start to become distinctly Christmassy!

Thanks to: **saketini, onetruepotato, octopus, Guest, Marichinocherry, i Mel-chan i** and **Empress Vegah**!

There's a lot in this chapter, haha.

The Waning

III

"Hey, Arthur, can I ask you something?"

Arthur glanced up from his teacup, frowning. They were at a small table in the very back of _The Blood Olive_, at just before 3am after they'd made the crossing back into the Land of the Banished. Alfred had announced that he was hungry and Arthur knew this place to be open until 4am, given the siesta habits of its proprietors.

"I suppose so," Arthur said, cautious. He looked at Alfred, who had put down his fork in favour of twisting his sewn-on fingers together with a sudden manic nervousness. "...Out with it, then."

"It's, uh... well, I just _wondered_..." Alfred looked away, gathering up his courage. "Do you... actually _like _me?"

Arthur narrowed his eyes.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, it's just that... I-I dunno, you just seem so impatient and put-upon all the time, like I'm a burden-"

"You're not a _burden_," Arthur interrupted. "Just aggravating."

"But you _made _me!" Alfred held up his ring hand. "You _married _me, I just don't get it! Shouldn't you like me at least a little bit?"

"I... I do like you." Arthur looked down distractedly. "A little bit."

"Well, it doesn't seem like it," Alfred grumbled. "I don't _mean _to annoy you, you know. You're just so touchy and jumpy... ugh, I feel like I can't even _breathe _without you glaring daggers at me!"

Arthur exhaled through his nose.

"My apologies," he said in a low voice. "I expect I'm not very easy to live with. I've lived alone since I became a vampire and, well, we're not the most social of creatures to begin with. We tend to be loners because we don't like to share and we're easily annoyed, even by each other. Hunger and daylight both make _me _very irritable."

"But you actually _do _like me, right?" Alfred squinted at him.

"Of course. I wouldn't marry anyone that I hated."

Alfred laughed, brightened.

"Gee, I dunno, you seem like kind of a masochist," he said, going back to his dinner. "You sleep in a coffin when you have that huge bed - it's very comfy, by the way - and you have that mirror but you drape it over because you can't see yourself in it-"

"Ah, yes." Arthur gave a sudden melancholy smile. "I can barely remember what I look like. A few people have done paintings and the like over the centuries - and I think there are some photographs from more recently, although I don't show up terribly well in them. But I haven't _seen _myself since I died. I don't remember any of my flaws. Portraits are always exaggerated - or at least that was the fashion in Elizabeth's time."

"You've got _huge _eyebrows," Alfred said helpfully. "But I guess you can't pluck them if you can't see yourself, right?"

"Mm." Arthur scowled. "Good thing I don't need to shave, I'd have cut my throat by now."

"Ugh, being a vampire sounds _terrible_," Alfred sighed. "I guess I'll stick to being twelve guys sewn together."

"Perhaps that would be for the best," Arthur agreed peevishly.

"...I wonder who I was before."

"This again?" Arthur went back to this tea. "I've told you that I don't know."

"I said I _wonder_." Alfred looked pointedly at the vampire. "How about you, then? You must remember who you were, right?"

"Well, yes," Arthur said, taking a thoughtful sip. "But then again I've been a vampire for much longer than I was ever a human. I was only twenty-one when I died."

"Tell me," Alfred said through a mouthful of steak.

"Oh, there's not much to tell. The exciting part of my life began _after _I was turned." Arthur shrugged. "But for what it's worth, I lived in England during the reign of King Henry VI, brought up on the tales of Henry V's victory over the French at Agincourt. I decided that I should like to learn to read and write, which was preferable to working the fields, so at the age of fifteen I joined a monastery."

"So you were like... a monk?" Alfred asked incredulously.

"In-training." Arthur grinned. "Ironic, isn't it? It wasn't for any great religious passion, you understand; back then, if you wanted to learn to read and write, that was your only ticket, for I wasn't a rich lord or prince with tutors."

"So what happened?"

"Well, one evening another brother and I went out to gather berries for the morrow's breakfast. We were attacked by a vampire deep in the woods, one so hungry that it killed the both of us."

Alfred seemed confused.

"Wait, so... if it _killed _you, how did you become a vampire? Is that how it works?"

"Oh, goodness, no." Arthur was enjoying himself now. "Of course, you wouldn't know... and the practice is long dead, at least within the church. We vampires ourselves perfected it around the time of the Reformation-"

"You're not making any sense, Arthur."

"Well, consider this: if a vampire turns anyone they bite into a vampire too, that's going to create a lot of vampires with an ever-dwindling food source, isn't it? So naturally that's not how it works. To create one, a ritual is performed on the corpse of one killed by a vampire. It's a bit of blood anointed on the forehead, a sprinkling of gravesoil and a few incantations, nothing too fancy. If the deceased was a virgin, you get a vampire. If they weren't, you get a Hollow, which is more of a brainless killing machine that nobody has much control over."

"Like a zombie?"

"A little bit, I suppose, although any zombie I've ever come across had a much calmer disposition than a Hollow."

Alfred frowned. He had stopped eating.

"So, wait... two things." He put up one finger, then pointed it at Arthur. "One: that means _you _were a virgin, right?"

"Luckily for me," Arthur said dryly. "Brother Geoffrey was less fortunate. It turned out he'd had a few dalliances out in the fields in his home town. He was dispatched very soon after his revival."

"Right." Alfred gave a thoughtful nod. "And two: Why was the _church _creating vampires?!"

"It sounds ridiculous now," Arthur said, "but in those days life revolved around the church and religion. People had little else in their lives - and you must remember that these were perilous times, with death lingering on your every step. The Black Death had wiped out almost two thirds of Europe's population not too many decades before and there were regular outbreaks of plague epidemics all the time, not to mention high infant mortality and the frequency of women dying during childbirth. All-encompassing religion at that time was a comfort. Communities were built around the church, around religion, and that was how it worked."

Arthur paused, swilling his tea around the cup.

"And so it was within the church's interest to keep the masses paralysed with fear. What better way of doing that than to create monsters? And vampires are easy enough to control if you know how to kill them. They'd create one every once in a while, then send a trained priest or nun after it a few days later to kill it and cut off its head and stick it on a spike in the churchyard. Everyone would flock to the church in thanks and abstain from sinning for about a month. Naturally the clergy spread the sermon that vampires only came amongst sinners, hoping that people would behave themselves, or at least stop having so much sex. They always ended up with more Hollows than they did vampires and believe me they did _not _want one of those on the loose."

Alfred looked stunned by this tale, his mouth hanging open.

"It's possible that they deliberately had Brother Geoffrey and I killed," Arthur said nonchalantly. "There always seemed to be a high number of trainee monks and nuns killed - I expect they thought we were the most likely to be virgins. The vampire who murdered us had been a young priest from the neighbouring town. I recognised him."

Still Alfred said nothing. Arthur frowned, wary.

"A-anyway," he said quickly, "I don't mean to go on about it, I'm sure I'm boring you-"

"No, no, you're absolutely not! It's just that... wow, I can't believe the _church _was behind it."

"I told you before, the humans are _far _worse than anything this side of the gate."

"So what did you do when you woke up as a vampire?"

"Well, I knew what they did to vampires and after I woke up on an altar surrounded by the rest of the monastery and with Brother Geoffrey's Hollow corpse plastered halfway up the wall, I suppose I realised what they'd been up to and what was going to happen to me if I remained in the town. So after they turned me out to be hunted, I did the sensible thing and fled to London. It was very easy for a vampire to hide there, even back then. They never found me - I suppose they didn't think to hunt so far afield - and I stayed in London for many centuries afterwards. Thanks to those bastards, I've had quite the life. I knew Sir Francis Drake and William Shakespeare and Samuel Pepys and the Romantics, I went to sea with some of the most notorious pirates you've ever heard of, I lived through the Plague and the Great Fire of London and the Industrial Revolution, I saw the British Empire rise and decline and then rise again - and from time to time, when I got bored, I'd join the army. I don't suppose anyone would ever make the connection between all the Arthur Kirklands who fought in the English Civil War and the American War of Independence and Trafalgar and Balaclava and Waterloo and in India and Africa and at the Somme and Arras and Ypres, not to mention the Battle of Britain and D-Day. You should see the medals I've got hoarded upstairs in a drawer."

Arthur grinned now, his sharp teeth white.

"I'm a very good soldier, you see," he said. "Strong, fast, brutal and immortal."

"And no-one ever figured out you weren't human?" Alfred asked in a hushed voice. "No-one _ever _suspected?"

Arthur shrugged.

"Well, no-one ever _said _anything."

"Wow." Alfred was looking at Arthur with what appeared to be a newfound admiration. "So you're actually all kinds of awesome."

"You seem surprised."

"Well, I thought you were kind of stuffy and boring for a vampire."

"I'm sensible," Arthur sighed. "Hell knows I haven't always been - but I'm old enough now to know better."

"And old enough to want to be married all of a sudden."

Arthur gave an arch smile.

"Well, I suppose I'm not getting any younger." He pressed his hands together and rested his chin on his fingertips. "And despite myself I'm finding this to be somewhat enjoyable. Nobody's ever found me _interesting _before. Well, except Shakespeare, but he was usually drunk and I think he was only trying to pick my brain for a good story, besides."

"You're _so _interesting!" Alfred said. "You're by the far the most interesting guy I've ever met!"

"I suspect you don't recall anyone else any part of you has ever met," Arthur said, arching his eyebrows.

"Even so!" Alfred took up his glass and raised it zealously. "Here's to us and our weird marriage! Keep this up and it might not be so bad being hitched to you after all."

"I'm flattered." Arthur half-heartedly raised his teacup in response.

Alfred beamed at him happily and attacked his dinner again. Letting him eat in peace, Arthur languidly finished his tea as he surveyed the cafe, which had gradually gotten busier over the past half an hour. _The Blood Olive _was a favourite haunt - pun intended - of many of the residents of Midnight Marches, particularly after the closing of the gate, because it was clean, spacious and served great food. It was often used for meetings, in particular by groups such Haunt Helpers (for ghosts and poltergeists less than adept at their trade), Mythical Creature Spotting (though Arthur professed that that lot wouldn't be able to see a unicorn if it bit them on the arse) and the contrary All Souls Army - which, unlike the All Saints, was less of an army and more a ragtag gang of trouble-makers who attempted to organise the counterattack for The Waning every year.

It looked as though they were in for an All Souls rabble, in fact, as Arthur recognised some of the usual suspects and knew it wouldn't be long before self-elected "General" Gilbert Beilschmidt announced himself - with second-and-third-in-commands Elizaveta and Roderich Edelstein behind him.

Elizaveta and Roderich, who were married, were demons; both were cool-headed and rational, a small mercy given their anarchistic ways. Gilbert, on the other hand, was wild, excitable and violent. It was hard to say what he was, given that his brother was a werewolf; truly he didn't seem to show any real traits of anything. A Hollow, maybe, Arthur had mused previously, but of course Gilbert was sentient and articulate - more like a vampire, in fact. Perhaps a strange hybrid between the two?

Either way, Arthur was fairly sure that they only descended on this place every week because Ludwig owned both it and a large collection of firearms, explosives and a Jeep. All four proprietors of _The Blood Olive _were members of the All Souls Army, although the Italian brothers were less willing.

Arthur had been invited to join himself a few times. He always refused - because he'd been in the British Army plenty of times and the All Souls didn't run like any military organisation he'd ever seen. He preferred to take on the night of The Waning alone, with his Browning and bayonet and a grenade or two. By now Gilbert was offended and went to great lengths to get rid of him before commencing a meeting. Arthur didn't much fancy an argument with him tonight, he was tired and too full to be antagonistic, and left Alfred to finish as he went to pay Ludwig.

The werewolf looked slightly haggard, his platinum hair straying from its disclipined formation of oil.

"I take it you're expecting your dear brother," Arthur said coolly.

"I regret that I'm so obvious," Ludwig replied. "Besides, it's been a busy night. Antonio has had to help with the cooking and I've been serving." He nodded towards Alfred. "I see your new husband is still in one piece."

"I happen to be very good at sewing." Arthur let his green eyes slide towards the back; he could see Francis leaning through the kitchen bar talking to Antonio. "Oh, yes, Gilbert's definitely coming. It's not often Francis makes an appearance."

"Ghosts don't have much at stake," Ludwig agreed absently. "I take it you're not staying?"

"For Gilbert to spit on me? I don't think so." Arthur glared at an oblivious Francis. "Besides, I suspect that blabbermouth spectre has already tattled on me. If Gilbert knows about my ambitions to join the Court of Bones, I'll never hear the end of it."

"It's a privelege afforded by few." Ludwig's tone was curt. "Though I daresay Gilbert is heartless enough - as are you."

Arthur grinned.

"And you're not?"

Ludwig shook his head tiredly.

"Feliciano is the bane of my life," he said, "but I would not sacrifice him for all the world."

"Admirable." Arthur nodded to the werewolf. "Goodnight."

He returned to the table, aware that the place was really beginning to fill up; Elizaveta and Roderich were both here already, he saw them in the kitchen with Feliciano and Lovino as he passed.

"Come along, Alfred," he urged. "Let's go home."

"Okay." Alfred obediently stood and pushed in his chair; glancing around curiously. "Why's it so busy in here all of a sudden?"

"Oh, there's to be a meeting." Arthur gave an impatient wave of his hand. "There are some on this side who prefer to see The Waning as a bloodsport - the same mindset as the humans, you might say. They have these weekly meetings to wax poetic about the grand things they'll do on the night."

"And you're not interested?"

"I've seen enough wars to know that they never go the way they're planned." Arthur rolled his eyes. "Although The Waning happens every year, you'd think these people would have learnt some sense by now..."

Arthur opened the door, gesturing for Alfred to step through; before he could, Gilbert Beilschmidt appeared, taking up the entire doorframe in his rather grand, over-the-top appropriated uniform. It was black, high-collared, with lashings of silver for the buttons and fringing and cords. He whipped off his hat as he stepped into the cafe, his scarlet eyes bright.

"Vampire," he said dismissively of Arthur. "Don't you have some necks to bite in your fancy coat?"

"At least I didn't steal my coat from a dead general," Arthur replied. "Besides, we were just leaving. I wouldn't be caught alive with your lot."

"_We_?" Gilbert at last gave him his full attention, his gaze falling on Alfred. He looked him up and down very thoroughly. "Oh, yeah, Francis said you'd gotten yourself a little bitch."

Alfred looked affronted.

"I doubt those were his words, exactly," Arthur said stiffly; Francis was too poetic for that.

"Whatever." Gilbert scowled at Alfred. "...You know, you look kind of familiar."

"Oh, how could he?" Arthur asked crossly, pushing Alfred in the back to get him moving. "I got all the parts from morgues. Now if you'll excuse us."

"Sure, get out of my sight." Gilbert stepped aside marginally to let them pass. "I don't have time for traitors."

He watched them go, however, his red eyes trained on Alfred. Arthur kicked the door shut in his face.

"_Familiar_?" Alfred asked accusingly the moment they were in the street.

"You've got one of those faces, I expect," Arthur said. "Not to mention the amount of people Gilbert has killed. He's bound to have murdered _someone _who looked like you."

Alfred didn't look convinced; but he dropped it, changing tack.

"Why'd he call you a traitor?"

"He calls anyone who won't join his "army" a traitor; it's nothing personal."

Alfred stopped.

"Arthur, be honest with me," he said. "Are you like a social outcast or something? _No-one _seems to like you much."

"I suppose I am - by choice. I don't mix very well."

"I don't think you try."

Arthur shrugged, starting away.

"Why bother?" he asked airily. "Nobody stays in the end anyway. I'm better off alone."

"Then why marry me?" Alfred stepped in front of him, his hands on his hips. "Why the hell am I bound to you if you'd rather be alone?"

"Oh, you misheard me," Arthur sighed, passing him with ease. He didn't look at him. "I didn't say _rather_. I said _better off_."

000

"Will you come in the bed with me?"

"I beg your pardon?" Arthur looked at Alfred over his shoulder, surprised; he was folded up on the fainting couch before his dresser, arranging his tie pins.

"The bed." Alfred, in his underwear and ready for bed, glasses off, every line of stitches visible, pointed at the offending piece of furniture. "You know. This thing."

"No." Arthur went back to his task.

"Why not?!"

"Because I sleep in my coffin," Arthur said testily. "I always have."

"Yeah - but you haven't always been married."

"And?"

"And so you have to break the habit!" Alfred folded his arms across his broad chest. "I-I'm your husband and I demand that you sleep in the bed with me!"

"No."

"_Why_?!" Alfred put his hands in the air in disbelief. "I'm not going to _do _anything, if that's what you think - even though we haven't actually _consummated _the marriage so-"

"I'm freezing. You wouldn't enjoy it. If you could perform. Which you can't."

"That's not the _point_!" Alfred gave a frustrated groan. "I thought we were finally _getting _somewhere tonight, like you were actually letting me in a little bit...!"

"Not my intention."

"O-oh."

Alfred was hurt; Arthur knew it without even looking at him.

"Alfred, it's _just _a _bed_," he said.

"If it's _just _a _bed _then why is it such a big deal for you to sleep in it with me?" Alfred snapped. "It's... it's fine if you don't want to have sex with me-"

"We couldn't regardless."

"But do I really repulse you so much that you won't even share a bed with me?!" Alfred sounded very upset. "If you don't like the way I look then it's your own fault!"

"It's not that," Arthur said calmly. "It's absolutely nothing to do with you, Alfred - simply a silly habit of mine-"

"Then I'll burn the coffin and you'll have no choice!"

This was all talk, no doubt, but nonetheless Arthur wasn't taking any chances. He sighed and uncurled, stepping off the fainting couch.

"Look," he said impatiently, coming to the side of the bed. "How about this for a compromise?"

He lifted the coffin and hoisted it onto the bed, pushing it so that it lay along one side of the mattress.

"I'm in the coffin," Arthur said, gesturing, "and the coffin is in the bed."

Alfred didn't look terribly happy with it; but at length he shrugged, layering on an aloofness.

"Whatever," he said. He was clearly still very offended, his body stiff as he got into bed and turned over, facing away from the coffin looming at his side. "Goodnight."

Arthur debated putting the coffin back on the floor after that lukewarm reception; but he didn't, finishing getting ready for bed and pulling across the thick curtains to shut out the pale pink light of the dawn. He clambered into the coffin, which rocked like a little boat on the mattress, and settled down, drawing his blankets around himself.

He found that he couldn't sleep, however, instead listening to Alfred breathe. He felt suddenly and strangely guilty - something he hadn't experienced for a very long time.

He was going to regret it, he knew; but, with his heart pounding, he slithered over the side of the old wood and gently pushed it onto the floor. It clattered against the bedframe as Arthur squirmed under the covers and lay very still for a moment.

It didn't feel much different from his coffin; a bit softer, perhaps, and without the confinement that he had come to like, but it was comfortable enough.

He had thought Alfred was asleep; and so he stiffened, surprised, when Alfred rolled over and casually slipped an arm over him.

"You're cold," Alfred whispered sleepily.

"I did warn you," Arthur replied.

"'S'okay." Alfred nuzzled against him. "I don't mind. G'night."

"...Goodnight."

Although it most certainly wasn't night, it was morning; and for a long time, Arthur watched the blushes of pink and gold and greyish-heather-blue rising up the opposite wall.

When he did sleep, however, it was with a smile.

* * *

He was by himself when he awoke, buried in the bedding. It was undignified for a vampire, he felt, and he crawled back into his coffin and sulked there for a little while, annoyed that Alfred hadn't had the decency to still be next to him when he woke up.

Presently, however, he could smell the strong, bitter scent of coffee drifting up through the house, accompanied by a symphony of clattering coming from the kitchen. Arthur sat up and checked the clock: it was just gone half four in the afternoon, still daylight, but it was beginning to recede enough that he could bear to get out of bed. He put on his robe over his silk pyjamas and padded downstairs, curious.

Alfred was busy at the stove, with all manner of bags and debris on the table and counters. He had a steaming cup of black coffee at his side as he worked.

"Alfred, what in blazes is all this?" Arthur asked, standing in the threshold.

Alfred jumped, turning to Arthur.

"Good morning!" he chirped. "Or, well, good afternoon! How did you enjoy your first night in a bed?"

"Don't change the subject!" Arthur stepped into the kitchen. "Where did you get all this?"

"I went to the marketplace you mentioned." Alfred went back to his frying pan; he was cooking bacon and eggs together. "I figure we can't keep eating at that cafe every day - so I got us some groceries."

"Oh, _do _make yourself comfortable," Arthur said acidly.

Alfred put down his spatula.

"Why are you being like this?" he asked. "One minute you're all over me and the next you're acting like you're going to toss me out on the street. It's tiresome. I wish you'd make up your mind."

Arthur plucked at his bottom lip with his pointed teeth, looking at Alfred's back. He could see the line of stitches on his neck, gleaming over the crest of his collar.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, sinking into a chair at the kitchen table. "I know I keep jumping at you. I don't mean it."

"Don't you?" Alfred didn't sound very convinced.

"I'm sorry," Arthur said again, looking fixedly at the table. "I just... this is _hard _for me, I-"

"What, sharing your house?" Alfred sounded incredulous.

"No, _not_... it's..." Arthur scowled. "Look, never mind. To answer your earlier question, yes, the bed was satisfactory."

"Better than a grimy old coffin, right?" Alfred took the peace offering, getting out some plates.

"I wouldn't say it was _better_, as such."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't admit it if it makes you feel better." Alfred came to the table with two plates stacked with bacon, eggs and sausages. "Here you go, Count. Get your teeth into that."

"I don't eat-"

"Yes you do." Alfred returned swiftly with a pot of tea and gravy boat of blood. "If you're married to me, yes you do."

Arthur shot him an ugly look.

"It's not too late to get it annulled," he said.

"Sure thing - but after breakfast, okay?"

Alfred made short work of his; Arthur was pickier, eating about half of it, but Alfred seemed happy enough with the effort (given that he got to finish what Arthur left untouched).

"It was very good," Arthur assured him, stirring his tea. "It's just that I can't digest very much solid food, my body is out of practice."

"Well, we'll have to get you back in the habit." Alfred was on his fourth piece of toast. "I _love _eating. I'd hate to be like you!"

"It's peculiar," Arthur mused. "Hollows can eat; they survive mostly on flesh. Vampires seem to only need the blood."

"How long can you go without feeding?"

"A few weeks - although it's very unpleasant. Ideally we would feed every night - which is still not much when you consider that humans eat three meals a day - but recently that hasn't been an option. Luckily you can get it bottled in the marketplace but it's better fresh."

"Is that why you're so jumpy?"

Arthur sighed.

"I expect that's something to do with it." He glanced away. "...Of course, the proximity of The Waning doesn't help matters."

Alfred leaned back in his chair with his coffee, looking at the ceiling. He had his sleeves rolled up, the stitches in his wrists starkly black against his skin (two tones gently off-set). Arthur frowned at him, fidgeting with his fork.

This was a lot harder than he had expected it to be.

"We should go out again tonight," Alfred said after a moment.

"Absolutely not." Arthur shook his head. "Not after that stunt you pulled last night."

"I won't do it again, I promise." Alfred sat up again, putting aside his cup. "C'mon, it's just a little bit of fun."

"My eating habits are not a _hobby_!" Arthur seethed. "Going into the Other Realm is _very _dangerous, Alfred, and if you're going to be an idiot about it-"

"I said I won't do it again!" Alfred pressed his hands together. "Come on, Arthur, _please_. I enjoyed myself last night - and I sure as hell don't want to be stuck in the house all night."

"We can do something else," Arthur said; inwardly lamenting the loss of his evening to do some embroidery and catch up on his reading and reorganise his cufflinks. "There's a theatre in the town-"

"Boring."

"What about a look in some of the shops?"

"Did that this afternoon."

"How about the library?"

"No way." Alfred leaned across the seized Arthur's hand. "Come _on_, Arthur. Just for an hour or so. We don't have to kill anyone, I just want to look around. Maybe I'll remember something about who I was."

"Out of the question." Arthur snatched his hand back and got up. "You'll have plenty of time to see it when some All Saints soldier is battering your brains out with a plank on All Hallows."

"Fine," Alfred drawled as Arthur started to stalk away. "Then I'll just sneak out and go by myself the moment you turn your back on me."

Arthur stopped.

"No, you won't."

"Yeah, I will. I mean it. You can't watch me all night - unless you want to, but that's gonna be a full-time investment, you know? Like literally you will have to be in the same room as me all night without leaving me for a second." Alfred grinned. "And I can be pretty annoying. I will tickle you, I will bite your ears, I will make every irritating sound I can possibly think of. You'll be begging me for mercy by 1am, guaranteed."

Arthur stared at him in dismay.

"Well," he said, "I suppose you _are _at least 60% executed criminals."

Alfred sprang up.

"So that's a yes?"

"I suppose you're not leaving me with much choice," Arthur said gloomily. "I might kill you otherwise. But. _But_. I mean it." He jabbed his finger at Alfred accusingly. "It's a social call, in and out. You will stay with me the entire time. If I tell you to run, you run like hell. If you so much as _scratch _a human, I will cut those stitches on your neck and drop-kick your head back through the gate. Do I make myself _perfectly clear_?"

"You bet." Alfred saluted him; then hugged him boistrously. "You won't regret it!"

"I doubt that," Arthur said stiffly; he was very rigid in Alfred's grasp, his hands firmly at his sides. "...Please let go."

"Oh, sure." Alfred released him, grinning. "Well, you go get yourself prettied up."

"We can't go until midnight."

"Yeah, but it'll probably take you that long." Alfred went back to the table. "Off you go, I'll clear up."

Arthur didn't move for a long moment, watching him stack the plates and gather the cutlery. The domesticity of it was sudden and heavy and electric. It terrified him. He desperately wanted to flee but his legs wouldn't move.

"Arty?" Alfred paused, watching him.

"D-don't call me that," Arthur said sharply, the nickname jolting through him. "My name is Arthur. It's only two syllables, I don't care for your shortening it."

"Oh. Okay." Alfred shrugged. "Sorry."

He turned away to the sink, humming to himself. Arthur forced himself to move before he spoke again, escaping into the hall.

Alone, listening to Alfred cheerily wash up just beyond, Arthur leaned back against the wall and pressed his hands to his mouth. His shoulders shook and his pulse beat in his fingertips. He really ought to just pack in now, he thought bitterly, if he was going to be such a miserable wretch about it.

(This was so, _so _much harder than he had expected.)

* * *

The gate hung high in the night, black and gothic against the velvet blues of the sky, the heavy old wrought iron entwined with thick-thorned roses and jealous ivy.

Arthur checked his Browning, turning it over on his finger and putting it under his coat. He was buttoned right up to the throat again in armour of Army-issue khaki wool, a black scarf beneath it; Alfred, meanwhile, bracing himself in the cool October air in just his shirt and braces. He didn't much mind, being that he felt very little.

"Ready?" Arthur glanced at him.

"You bet!" Alfred bounced on the balls of his feet, ready to take off. "Come on, let's go! The night is young!"

"The night may be," Arthur grumbled as Alfred bounded ahead, "but I am not."

The crossing was unceremonious. Tonight the gate opened out into a churchyard and they emerged between the crypts and jagged gravestones in the silver light. The night was a quiet one - and the sound of music carried on the air.

"Weird," Alfred said, glancing around. "Didn't we come out in the woods last night?"

"The entrance moves," Arthur replied. "For the best, really - the All Saints Army would set up a sentry otherwise, I expect, and shoot us as we emerged. With that said, they'll be on patrol, especially this close to the town."

"The town?" Alfred glanced at him. "So it's always the _same _town?"

Arthur nodded.

"The weakest link in the barrier between the Land of the Banished and this world is here: Sleepy Hollow, New York. This is where the All Saints Army is concentrated and has it headquarters."

Alfred frowned, deep in thought.

"...Wait, isn't Sleepy Hollow... the place in that story?" He mimed cutting his neck (which was nothing short of ironic). "The Headless Horseman?"

"Yes - but that's just a story. I daresay Mr Irving heard the old rumour and made a fiction out of it."

"So there _is _no Headless Horseman?"

"Oh, there is - but I don't think he bothers with this realm much anymore. I've seen him around Midnight Marches a few times. He keeps to himself, mostly." Arthur shrugged. "It's hard to hold a conversation with him, as I'm sure you can imagine."

"Huh." Alfred gave a thoughtful nod.

A great black dog, tall-limbed with a long bent spine, slunk past them, its scarlet eyes aglow. Alfred warily stepped back from it.

"What the hell is that?" he whispered to Arthur.

Arthur glanced at it.

"Oh, it's just a barghest," he said. "Or a black shuck, whatever you want to call it. It won't hurt you." He frowned, however, watching the beast go slithering back to the gate. "...I don't like that it's retreating, though."

"Why?"

"Because they're rather good at blending in. A lot of the time people just think they're big black dogs and pay them no mind. Most of them are more-or-less harmless, too, so they don't get hunted as actively as vampires and werewolves." Arthur shook his head. "Something must have frightened it."

"Maybe the music?" Alfred started ahead, beckoning. "C'mon, let's go find out what's going on."

Arthur, who had his suspicions, stood his ground.

"Alfred, we are _not _going into the town."

But Alfred was already off, making his way through the weaving path of gravestones. Arthur chased after him, seizing upon his arm.

"Alfred, I said _no_!"

"It's just a quick look, I promise I'll be good." Alfred kept moving, dragging the vampire along after him. "I won't lay a _finger _on a single human, I promise."

"That's not the _point_-"

"Arthur." Alfred deftly shook him off and looked at him. "You can't stop me. Now you can either stay here with the bar ghost-"

"Barghest."

"Whatever." Alfred folded him arms. "_Or _you can come with me. I'm going regardless."

Arthur clenched his fists in frustration.

"_Why _won't you see sense?!" he pleaded. "It's _dangerous_, there are All Saints soldiers on every street corner-"

"I'm not just gonna waltz up to them!"

"Do you think they don't know a monster when they see one?!"

Alfred blinked. He looked hurt.

"I'm not a monster," he said at length.

"Yes you are. We both are. That's all _any _of us are to them."

Alfred was quelled for all of ten seconds; before turning on his heel again.

"I'm still going," he said dismissively. "I don't have to do what you say."

Arthur kneaded at his temples in utter despair for a moments, taking a deep breath, before going after him again. Alfred smiled at him as he came to his side.

"Oh, you _are _coming!"

"I haven't got much choice, have I?" Arthur asked bitterly. "I can't have you getting yourself captured or killed."

"How sweet." Alfred stuck out his tongue at him. "But I'm not that stupid."

"Hmm." Arthur checked his Browning again. "We'll see about that, lad."

Sleepy Hollow was an old-fashioned little township, still with many of its original colonial buildings and pathways; and out in more-or-less the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dense forest. It really made quite the perfect portal between worlds.

Arthur's suspicion was proven correct: It was first day of the Guising Festival, held three nights before Halloween - the night of The Waning. He tended to avoid the town on these precursor nights, either feeding on bottled blood or hunting further afield. The Guising Festival was not in very good taste to anyone of a more supernatural disposition, being an outdoor carnival held in the town square of Sleepy Hollow with the sole purpose of being a prepatory hype-up for the coming bloodbath. People wore their ghoulish costumes and milled about the booths - which were more in the way of the commercialised Halloween, selling sweets and candy apples and hot spiced wine; and masks and rifles and hunting kinves and baseball bats with nails in them.

Every booth and stall was alight by the orange glow of carved pumpkins. After The Waning, these would make way for the dismembered heads of all those killed, their hollowed skulls lit by candles.

The foreboding atmosphere was lost on Alfred, who seemed perfectly delighted with there being a carnival. After grudgingly accepting Arthur's insistence of his scarf - wound around his throat to cover the telltale stitches - he plunged into the crowd, Arthur following with trepadition. Words did not suffice to say how nervous he was - and he knew that Alfred did not understand. Hiding in plain sight perhaps had its merits - it was likely that people would mistake his pale skin for make-up and his fangs for false ones - but it was still foolhardy to come here. Maybe ordinary people did not know a real vampire when they saw one but the All Saints Army certainly did.

He found Alfred watching a street performer in an oversized pumpkin mask juggling fire; he was munching on a candy apple.

"Hey, there you are!" He offered Arthur the apple. "Want a bite?"

Arthur recoiled.

"No." He scowled at Alfred. "And stop charging off, I don't think you have _any _idea how dangerous this is!"

Alfred rolled his eyes.

"Ugh, lighten up, like anyone is gonna look twice at us here." He pointed to a few girls going by, made up as witches with large-brimmed hats. "We look normal compared to these guys."

"Perhaps too normal," Arthur muttered.

"Stop _worrying_!" Alfred took another bite out of his apple. "Fine, you wanna go get masks?"

"I want to _go_," Arthur said. "It's only a matter of time before-"

Alfred was already away, hauling Arthur behind him; they pushed through the colourful crowd in all their finery of false blood and torn cloth and rubber teeth until Alfred came to rest at one of the stalls laden down with gruesome masks. Arthur felt his skin prickle and stepped back away from the legions of blank eyeholes - waiting for eyes that would hunt him and rest of his kind down.

"Which one do you want?" Alfred asked cheerfully, catching at him.

"I don't want one!" Arthur hissed, pulling away. "Let's just go, Alfred, please-"

"Stop being a spoilsport." Alfred impatiently waved him away. "I want one."

Invariably - as Arthur distracted himself by watching the bagged goldfish on the next stall swimming sadly in their tiny confines - Alfred bought two masks anyway, showing them off to Arthur as he took his elbow and led him away.

"Look at this one, it's like a hockey mask," he said proudly, waving it at the vampire. "Cool, huh?"

"No."

"Well, I thought you wouldn't like that one - so I got you this one instead." Alfred produced a hideous, badly-painted likeness of Count Dracula. "It's perfect!"

"Alfred, I don't want a mask, I don't want a bite of your apple-"

"Do you want a goldfish? I'll win you one."

"_I don't want a goddamn goldfish_!" Arthur exploded. "How can you be so stupid that you don't understand what this _is_?!"

"I'm just having a bit of fun," Alfred pouted. "Have you forgotten how to do that?"

"This. Is not. _Fun_." Arthur sighed angrily at him. "Once you've survived a Waning you'll understand. As for me, I can't stand another moment of this." He pointed to a bench outside the bustle of the festival. "I'm going to sit over there. You can have ten more minutes and not a moment longer or I'll go without you."

Alfred rolled his blue eyes and slipped on his new mask.

"_Fine_." He waved at Arthur. "See you in ten."

Arthur was left with the ugly Dracula mask, which he tossed into a bin on his way past. He found his way to the bench and sat down, his hands clasped on his knees. His heart was pounding; he hadn't been quite this terrified in a very long time. Alfred was a _lot _more trouble than he had been anticipating.

At least he didn't remember anything - but Arthur wondered how long it would be before someone here recognised him. Perhaps he couldn't begrudge the mask too much, even if the very sight of it sent a frigid chill down his spine.

He watched the crowd from the fringe, his green eyes low to the ground. He understood now why the barghest had fled, for there was an undeniable and heavy atmosphere in Sleepy Hollow tonight, one of bloodlust, the cruel nature of the chase to come.

He looked up, suddenly compelled to; for he could hear, amongst the crowd, the heavier steps of those steel-capped issue boots, the clinking of the long rifle. There was a soldier in there.

Arthur was up and into the crowd in a heartbeat, seeking Alfred's particular scent amidst the crush of sweat and sugar and burnt pumpkin flesh. He pushed through the throng, ducking under arms and purchased weaponry, keeping as close to the edge as possible; and he caught Alfred's chemical-bitter smell towards the heart. He paused, listening for those footsteps - now he strained to hear them and didn't waste time, following Alfred's scent, which lingered lower than everything else, intangible to all but his creator.

He found Alfred near a stall selling paper bags of candy corn; he had procured one, of course, and was happily stuffing his face with it, his mask perched on the side of his skull, when Arthur came upon him like a ton of bricks.

"Alfred!" Arthur grabbed at his arm and pulled. "We need to go."

"What?" Alfred looked dismayed. "There's no way that was ten minutes!"

"No arguments, we need to go." Arthur caught his gaze - and the urgency must have been in his eyes, for Alfred's own expression grew more serious. "_Now_."

"Okay, okay." Alfred rolled up his bag of candy corn and shoved it into his pocket. "Damn, I thought you were jittery _before_..."

"There's a soldier here," Arthur said breathlessly, taking his wrist and pulling him through the mass of revellers. "At _least _one, probably more."

"I've got my bayonet-"

"No, we can't fight!" Arthur shook his head as they reached the edge of the festival's confines. "Not here, they'd have us surrounded in an instant. We need to get back to the gate."

"Roger that," Alfred said, though he sounded a little disappointed.

They left the Guising Festival in their wake, Arthur in the lead as he pulled Alfred down one of the back alleys and into an adjacent street. This one was completely deserted, the music and voices from the carnival carrying over. Arthur paused, looking up at the rooftops.

Empty, as far as he could see.

"Is this the way we came?" Alfred asked.

"No. They might have seen us come in and be waiting - we should go back a different way." Arthur tugged at him to get him moving. "It's alright, I know my way."

He started off, Alfred obediently behind him. The New England buildings stretched overhead, obscenely tall in the night against the greenish clouds. Their tandem footsteps echoed off the bricks in the silent street, their breath clouding on the cold air.

"Actually," Alfred admitted quietly as they turned into another quiet street, "this place is starting to give me the creeps."

"I _told _you it was a bad idea," Arthur snapped.

"It's _always _a bad idea to trespass into All Saints territory, nosferatu."

Arthur froze, Alfred bumping into his back.

"Good." The voice was thickly-accented; one Arthur recognised. "Now turn around and get against the wall." A laugh. "If you behave, maybe I'll make it quick."

Though he had no intention of obeying, Arthur did turn, Alfred following suit. Corporal Søren Andersen of the All Saints Army, his blonde hair wild under his hat, had his rifle aimed squarely at the pair of them.

He blinked when he saw Alfred, his grip faltering a little.

Arthur knew he didn't have much time to waste, every muscle in his body coiling, readying.

"Run," he said to Alfred.

"Wh-what?" Alfred looked at him incredulously. "Not without you!"

Søren was staring at him in disbelief, his mouth open.

"I..." The Danish soldier shook his head. "You were-"

"Run!" Arthur threw himself at Søren, seizing the rifle and shoving it against his chest. Søren stumbled backwards before spreading his feet to gain ground, pushing back against Arthur's monstrous stength.

Alfred dawdled, panicking, not doing much of anything; and Arthur glared at him, fangs exposed, as he rammed Søren against the wall.

"If I tell you to run, you run like hell!" he shouted, furious. "So fucking _run_!"

* * *

**Søren Andersen** is, of course, Denmark (who sadly has no official human name). He is called such because 'Søren' is the most common fanon name for him and 'Andersen' is after Hans Christian Andersen, naturally.

The "virgin becomes a vampire" thing is borrowed from _Hellsing_ (although in _Hellsing_ it is **very** particular: the victim has to be both a virgin _and_ a member of the opposite sex to become a vampire). This is relevant later! (Also it seemed to make sense to me with the historical context I've given it. The church in the Middle Ages was obsessed with trying to stop people having sex before marriage or... well, really any kind of sex that wasn't for the purpose of procreation. They were pretty terrible at it, though.)

**Sleepy Hollow** is a real place! It's a very small town/village in the state of New York and its churchyard does in fact contain the grave of Washington Irving himself! This story does have elements of Irving's story in it (what with Alfred's head being... somewhat separate from the rest of him) and _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ is one of the very first examples of truly "American literature".

A **barghest** or **black shuck** is a spectre in the shape of a huge black dog with glowing red eyes associated with many areas of England (in particular Norfolk and Suffolk; also Somerset and Whitby). Legends about them differ greatly between areas: some are associated with the Devil ('shuck' comes from 'succa', Old English for 'demon') or the Cwm Annwn (a pack of spectral or 'fairy' hounds in Welsh legend) or are seen as generally ill-boding, malevolent or a sign of death (hence the association of Sirius Black's animagus form in _Prisoner of Azkaban_). In other areas they are seen as more or less harmless and even benevolent, often walking beside lonely travellers to protect them. They are said to very often haunt crossroads or bridges - so I thought they might hang around the gate in this story.

(Incidentally, Alfred's mispronunciation of the name as 'bar ghost' isn't altogether wrong, as 'ghest' is the older pronunciation of 'ghost'. It is proposed that the name roughly translates from Old English to 'town ghost'.)

I'm hoping this story will be about eight chapter so please join me next week! :3


	4. IV

Hello, everyone! I'm a little bit late with this update! T.T I've been horribly busy this week.

Thank you to: **Marichinocherry, Hetalia4eva, the-confused-artist, Guest, Winter-Grown-Lily,** another **Guest, octopus, Cafe, i Mel-chan i, Juni, saketini, nuclear taste, dozefallsdownthestairs, AEngland, Racheldillens **and **Empress Vegah**!

I apologise for not being able to reply to everyone personally at the moment but please know that I appreciate and value every single comment you leave! Especially with an ongoing "serial" story like this, being written/updated week-by-week, your responses are very helpful to me! C:

The Waning

IV

Alfred flung himself a few steps away but found he couldn't go any further, turning wildly and reaching for the bayonet tucked into his belt-

"Are you bloody _deaf_?!" Arthur twisted under Søren's arm and rammed his elbow into the soldier's gut. "_Go_, for Hell's sake! I'm right behind you!"

Indeed, Arthur did appear to have the upper hand, his strength merciless; he seemed to have knocked Søren half-unconcious, the Danish soldier struggling to keep a grip on his rifle as he tried to fight the vampire off.

So Alfred at last turned and ran, sprinting away down the alley, his breath strung out on the cold air. The end of the alley loomed into view, a gaping greenish square, and he fled for it because he didn't know which other way to go. He hoped Arthur would be on his heels because once he was out in the street, he was sure to get lost and then-

A tall, broad-shouldered figure stepped in front of him, blocking his escape. It was another soldier, severe-faced with glasses and pale blonde hair. He lifted his gun.

Alfred did not stop running, whipping the bayonet from his belt. It was heavy and cold in his hand as he swung all of his weight behind his motion, all but throwing himself into the soldier.

The blade went in between the ribs, tearing through thick wool with a jagged ease. The soldier crumpled with a gasp, stumbling backwards; and the gun clattered to the cobbles and Alfred went down with him, still clutching the bayonet. They both hit the stones with a hell of a bang, the wounded soldier writhing beneath Alfred's weight as he gasped and blubbed in a lilting language, the blood clouding on his coat.

Alfred braced his knees against the man's broad chest and pulled out the blade, the serrated edge tearing the flesh as it reversed. The soldier bucked with a stifled shout of pain; and then stilled, his chest heaving, as Alfred examined his bayonet.

He looked down at the dying soldier and grinned.

He lifted the blade once more, his blue eyes fixated on the soldier's white throat above his collar-

"Berwald!"

A clatter on the rooftop above. Alfred recoiled, looking up to see yet another soldier - this a young, fresh-faced thing with blonde hair under a white beret - with a rifle aimed squarely between his shoulders.

"Oh, God, Berwald!" Pale-faced with horror, the soldier felt for the trigger. "Go to Hell, you demon!"

Alfred sprang off "Berwald" and darted away, the shot grazing his shoulder. Determined not to make a target of himself a second time, he made a mad dash for the end of the alleyway and went swerving blindly out into the street. He took a breathless turn to the right, looking back to see if he was within the sights of anyone else, and slammed right into someone.

He stumbled, nearly knocked senseless, and righted himself against the wall. He looked up cautiously, his hand tightening around the bayonet, ready to charge.

He realised with a jolt that he was looking at himself.

No... it was a little off, the hair was longer, the eyes were more of a violet, and that was definitely that wretched army uniform he had seen far too much of in the past few minutes.

But it was his face. Definitely his own face.

He warily backed away, clutching the bayonet. The soldier lowered his gun, staring at him.

"...Alfred?" he whispered. He put a hand to his mouth. "God, no... it can't..." He shook his head. "You're dead."

This seemed like an unreasonable and even strange response from someone in the employ of an army dedicated to the fighting of all things "dead" (give or take); Alfred didn't know quite how to respond other than...

"How... how do you know my name?"

The soldier stepped closer; and Alfred backed up, ready to dispatch him if he came any closer.

"It's me, Al," the soldier said softly. "It's Matthew. Don't you remember?"

"I-"

"What on this earth are you doing?!" Arthur was suddenly at his side; he seized Alfred's hand and tugged, hauling him behind. "We've got to get out of here!"

He had his Browning in his hand, cocked and loaded, and he fired off a shot at Matthew as they thundered past. Matthew ducked and rolled, taking the bullet in his arm with a spray of blood on the bricks; and came to his knees and fumbled with his rifle.

But they were gone, well out of his range; and Arthur was very fast when he needed to be, pounding over the cobbles at an inhuman pace, with Alfred only just keeping up. He wouldn't have thought him capable of moving like this - animal, almost - because he always seemed so slow and deliberate in everything else.

They cut across a green and Arthur paused at the edge, Alfred running into the back of him.

"Sorry," he muttered, righting himself.

"Shut up." Arthur looked this way and that, then cocked his head, listening. "They'll send the whole bloody army after us, make no mistake of that; but we've got a head start and we're close to the cemetary. They might try to head us off so we'll have to be quick."

He pulled, taking off again.

"This way!"

They crossed the street and then Arthur took a sudden wild turn and vanished down a narrow back alley, so dark that it was impossible to see an inch in front of your face; and so Alfred had no choice but to trust Arthur and cling to his hand and wriggled down this particular rabbit hole. They came out onto a street that Alfred recognised: the graveyard gates were open, welcoming, at the end of it.

There was no time for celebration, however. Just as they started for it, a black open-top Jeep came screeching around the corner and into the street behind them, straightening up as the engine roared. It came careening over the cobbles after them, the passenger - a young female soldier with long silvery hair - leaning over the low door with her rifle. She fired once, twice, the shots exploding the merest of inches behind them-

And although their pace outran it, when Alfred looked at Arthur, he could see the vampire beginning to panic.

So he did the only thing he could think of.

He yanked backwards, breaking the stitches on his wrist, and threw himself under the car's wheels.

"_Alfred_!"

It didn't hurt, of course (well, not much); and as the front wheels jarred over his body, Alfred slammed the bayonet into the nearest tyre and dragged it downwards, tearing the rubber right open. The Jeep swerved violently and he rolled clear of the back wheels, still in triumphant possession of the knife as he came to his feet.

Arthur sprang on him, seizing him by his sleeve.

"You fucking _idiot_!" He pulled violently, getting him going. "Come on - before you do anything else that stupid!"

"You're welcome," Alfred replied breathlessly as they passed the swerving Jeep; and they blazed ahead through the cemetary gates as the driver lost control and the whole car went skidding into the railings with an almighty _bang_.

"You're insane!" Arthur snapped as they sprinted up the path to the gate. "You didn't know you'd survive that!"

"Sure I did." Alfred grinned at him. "Call it a hunch."

"If you've damaged your body, _I'll _give you _permanent _damage!"

They reached the gate and pattered through together, breathing in the relief of the cool quiet bridge; and then the emergence into the calm smoky night on the other side. Midnight Marches glowed warmly at the bottom of the hill, a beacon through the trees.

"I'll bloody kill you!" Arthur exploded, assaulting Alfred with his own hand.

"I'm already dead," Alfred said, leaning against a tree to get his breath back. "That's how I was able to toss myself under a car, right?"

"That is _it_." Arthur made a very violent crossing motion with his hands (still holding Alfred's). "You are _never _coming over with me again. You're more trouble than you're worth."

"Hey, I saved you!" Alfred said, hurt.

"_You're _the one who drew attention to us in the first place!" Arthur stormed. "Poncing about at that fair - I _told _you it was a bad idea!"

"Yeah, yeah." Alfred couldn't hide a grin. "Still... pretty fun date, right?"

"It most certainly was not," Arthur said stonily. "I haven't had to run like that in a _very _long time."

"Yeah, _damn_!" Alfred gave a whistle. "You're a _beast_!"

"Yes, I am." Arthur sat down against one of the birches, at last holstering his Browning and drawing instead from his inner pocket his small sewing kit. "Well, sit down, then. I need to sew your hand back on."

Alfred obeyed, comfortably cross-legged, as Arthur threaded up his needle and started to reattach his hand.

"So you're not impressed?" Alfred asked. "By my daredevil quick-thinking?"

"No, I'm astounded at your idiocy." Arthur paused, quiet. "...However, it _was _selfless of you. I'll give it that."

"Heh. I knew I'd be fine."

Arthur looked at him.

"No, you didn't," he replied softly.

Alfred was quiet for a moment, subdued. He watched Arthur quickly and neatly stitch his hand back onto his wrist, his green eyes low to his task.

"One of the soldiers knew me, Arthur," he said. "He knew my name - a-and he _looked _like me, like _exactly _like me-"

"Perhaps he's your brother," Arthur said; though it was quick, dismissive. "But what does it matter?"

"Because he knows who I am!" Alfred burst out. "Or who I was, at least! And he could _tell _me, he could-"

"He could if you weren't a patchwork reanimated corpse and they hadn't just dispatched the whole All Saints Army to capture you," Arthur reminded him coldly. "You can't think you're just going to waltz back in through the gate and walk right up to him!"

"W-well, no, I guess not; but-"

"Then what difference does it make?" Arthur tied off his thread and cut it. "There we are, good as new. Don't throw yourself under anything else."

"No promises." Alfred flexed his fingers, turning his hand this way and that. "Thanks."

"I suppose it's the least I can do," Arthur huffed, rising. "I suppose... you _did _put the necessary distance between us and the Jeep. B-but don't go getting the the wrong idea, it was still moronic!" He folded his arms. "And don't think it escaped my notice that you stabbed someone else, either!"

"What was I supposed to do, just let him shoot me?!" Alfred scowled. "It was totally in self-defence!"

"I daresay." Arthur reached up, wiping at his cheek with his thumb. "...You've got a bit of blood on you."

"Yeah?"

"Mm." Arthur licked his thumb clean, watching him. "...There's more. Come here."

Alfred obediently leaned down; expecting, by now, that Arthur would take out a handkerchief or something and scrub it off like a mother hen-

Shocked when Arthur came close and started to lick the blood off, his tongue lapping at the congealing gunk over Alfred's cheekbone and down the side of his jaw and neck, the kickback from the fatal wound he had given Berwald.

This was the closest Arthur had ever come to him of his own volition, his hands at his shoulders, dipping his head to get the blood under his jaw. His green eyes were closed, contented.

Alfred turned his head and caught Arthur's mouth with his own; and he could taste the copper bite of blood on him, unpleasant, but he endured. He felt Arthur's hands clench against his shoulders and was sure he would pull away but he didn't, tilting his head, pressing up into the kiss, and Alfred could feel the sharp edges of those teeth on his bottom lip.

Alfred backed against the birch, pulling Arthur with him, holding him close; and he was cold but Alfred could feel the life in him, quivering, his medieval heart pounding, it felt so familiar-

As though he knew how this went.

And suddenly Arthur wrenched himself away, looking wide-eyed at Alfred. He seemed horrified.

"No, I can't," he said, recoiling violently when Alfred tried to reach for him. "I can't!"

He pushed past Alfred and ran, darting into the trees.

"Wait!" Alfred turned, following. "Arthur, _wait_!"

The vampire was gone, swallowed up by the shadows. Alfred put his hand on the frosted birch and exhaled. He didn't understand.

"_Arthur_!"

* * *

"I can't believe we let them get away!" Søren stormed; fighting against the hand the young Norwegian medic placed firmly against his shoulder. "We had half the goddamn unit after them!"

Matthew said nothing, pinning his own bandage into place. He kept his head down.

Søren gave a snort when he got no answer.

"Hey, Lukas, how's Berwald doing?" he asked; he nodded towards the flurry further down the alleyway. A few medics, helped by Tino, were loading the injured Swedish solider onto a stretcher.

"Not good," Lukas replied quietly. "He's not going to live. He's lost too much blood and we can't stem it."

Søren looked at Matthew again.

"Hey," he said. "You saw him, didn't you?"

Matthew let out a sigh.

"Yes," he replied. "It was Alfred. There was no mistaking it."

"Now remind me again: don't you have your brother's headless corpse on a lab table back at HQ?"

"Well, obviously it wasn't _entirely _Alfred," Matthew said coldly. "Just his head - which explains why we could never find it."

Søren gave a disgusted shake of his head.

"These monsters just get more and more wacked," he said. "How many have gone over to the other side now?"

"I... I don't think it's Alfred's fault-"

"Oh, sure; nevermind that he gutted Berwald like a fish-"

"But didn't you see who he was with?" Matthew asked desperately.

"Yeah - that crazy vampire! Damn thing nearly gave me a concussion!"

"He's one of the oldest vampires there is," Lukas said calmly. "Arthur Kirkland - he must be over five hundred by now."

"No, that's not what I mean." Matthew gave a defeated sigh. "Well, I guess it makes sense that you wouldn't know him the way I do."

Søren blinked.

"Wait... you _know _him?!"

"N-not exactly, it's... well, _Alfred _knew him. From way before, you know, during the war."

"Did he know he was a vampire?"

"I don't know." Matthew shrugged. "All I know is that Arthur used to hang around him an awful lot, even after the war was over and Alfred joined the All Saints Army instead."

"And you think Kirkland killed him and took his head?" Søren asked heartlessly.

"I always thought it," Matthew admitted. "Now I _know _he did."

"So... what? He's not fair game?"

Matthew frowned.

"I think we should try to bring him in alive," he said. "We could learn a lot from him if he's willing to talk."

"...And the nosferatu?"

"By all means," Matthew replied, fixing his glasses, "please send him to Hell."

* * *

Alfred had been hoping to find Arthur at _The Blood Olive _(given that he'd never seen the vampire venture anywhere else in the town bar the library) but a quick scout around as he entered the cafe informed him that Arthur wasn't here. He must have gone home, then, and Alfred was about to leave when Feliciano sprang upon him clutching a stack of menus.

"_Ciao_, Mr Vampire-Husband!" the werewolf said brightly. "Are you on your own tonight? I'll get you a table!"

"I was looking for Arthur, actually." Alfred didn't put up too much of a fight nonetheless. "A-and I have a name! It's Alfred."

"Sorry, I'm not very good at remembering names," Feliciano said cheerfully. He plonked Alfred into a small corner booth and gave him a menu. "I'm serving tonight. It's quiet and Antonio went off drinking with Francis and Gilbert. Ludwig and Lovi are really angry."

"Uh huh." Alfred lowered the menu. "Has Arthur been in here tonight?"

Feliciano shook his head.

"He never comes in here on his own. Did you lose him or something?"

Alfred frowned.

"Well, yeah, sort of. He... uh, he ran off."

"Vampires are strange. Can I get you something to drink?"

Alfred hurriedly picked a beverage and a meal from the menu and Feliciano went flouncing away with it, looking very pleased with himself. Alfred watched him chattering happily to Ludwig at the front with his chin resting on his knuckles. These people didn't seem like Arthur - they seemed to stay on this side of the gate and mind their own business. Did the All Saints Army hunt them down too? And what about Belle, the pretty young witch who ran the bakery? Would they chase _her _with rifles and Jeeps? And Yao, the Chinese spirit proprietor of the shop across the street that seemed to sell just about everything you could possibly imagine; and Francis, too, on that note? They both seemed harmless enough.

Alfred could perhaps understand why they hunted the likes of Arthur, who preyed on humans and survived on their blood, but mostly Midnight Marches seemed like a pleasant and peaceful community of beings who didn't quite fit the bill of being "human". To hunt them down in the street seemed brutal and unfair.

And as _to _Arthur, well, Alfred couldn't fathom his behaviour. He seemed to like Alfred well enough, although determined to keep him at arm's length; and when Alfred ventured any closer than that, he visibly panicked. He had most certainly allowed Alfred to kiss him but his brief reciprocation made it all the stranger that he had turned tail and fled - as though Alfred had frightened him.

_Arthur, you __**made **__me. What the hell is your problem?_

The door swung open and Gilbert Beilschmidt announced himself, filling up the doorway in all his finery. Antonio and Francis were not far behind him. Feliciano, at Alfred's table with his strawberry soda, straightened and waved.

"Toni, you're back!"

Antonio glanced in their direction and waved; so did Francis and Gilbert. Francis, who clearly hadn't expected to see Alfred on his own, frowned.

Gilbert, seeing this too, was more direct, leaving his compatriots to approach Alfred's table.

"Feli, get me a beer," he said, taking off his hat.

Feliciano looked between them, smiling.

"Oh, do you know each other?"

"No," Alfred said cautiously.

Gilbert laughed, sinking into the seat opposite.

"I think we do," he said dangerously. "A _beer_, please, Feliciano."

Feliciano scampered away, leaving Alfred alone with Gilbert. He didn't know what to make of him: white-haired, scarlet-eyed, crazy-mouthed, in a general's uniform Arthur had insinuated was stolen.

"You think you know me?" Alfred asked, wary.

"In passing," Gilbert replied. He glanced around. "Where's the leech?"

"Leech?"

"You know - bloodsucker." Gilbert looked pleased with his own joke. "Your boyfriend."

"He's my husband, actually." Alfred shrugged. "I don't know where he is."

"Yeah? Well, that works out - 'cause I don't want him interrupting. He's up to something."

"Do you think?" Alfred was all nonchalance, sipping at his soda.

"He's a sly one." Gilbert scowled at Alfred. "...But not as sly as you."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're a member of the All Saints Army," Gilbert said in a low voice. "I've seen you before."

Alfred shook his head.

"You're mistaken," he said, "and I think I know why. There's a guy there, I've seen him too - his name is Matthew and he's the spit of me, more or less, I think he must be-"

"Your twin." Gilbert folded his arms on the table. "There are two of you - or there _were_, at least. The other one went missing in July."

Alfred stared at him, the bottom of his stomach dropping out.

"...What?"

Gilbert tilted his head.

"Well, I heard they found the body," he said. "But the head was missing." He reached across the table suddenly, grabbing the black scarf wound around Alfred's throat and pulling it down to reveal the line of stitches. "Oh, look. Mystery solved."

Alfred shook his head free.

"Arthur said he got all the parts for me from morgues-"

"Yeah, he probably did," Gilbert said easily. "Except for your head." He grinned in delight. "Perfect, isn't it? How does it feel to be married to your murderer?"

"Th-that can't... _can't _be right, I..."

"Why can't it?" Gilbert was rummaging though his coat pockets for something. "He's a vampire, not a saint."

"But it just seems like so much effort!" Alfred held up his stitched wrists. "Why not just... I don't know, turn me into a vampire or-"

"I guess you're not a virgin." Gilbert pulled out a small leather case, setting it on the table. "He wouldn't want a Hollow, right?"

"...How do you know about Hollows?"

"Because I am one." Gilbert opened up the case; a needle and a small bottle labelled HLW-01R, half-filled with a green liquid, were nestled within. "...Well, sort of. An artificial one." He plucked out the needle and the bottle. "I have to take this stuff every twenty-four hours or I'll go crazy for three days and then die in a gutter."

Alfred watched him fill up the syringe, sending a squirt of it over the table; it steamed, acrid-smelling, on the wood.

"I don't understand," he said.

Gilbert shrugged, injecting himself.

"There's not much to understand," he said sharply. "I'm an All Saints experiment; they were looking into the creation of counter-vampires a few years back. Hollows they could control, right - because the problem with Hollows is that you _can't _control them. I was a soldier in the army too, you see, and one night one thing led to another and I got mauled to death by a goddamn vampire."

"Was... was it Arthur?"

"Nah, it was Vlad." Gilbert smirked. "Funny thing, I'm actually pretty good friends with him now. Anyway, when they found me, I was dead as a doornail - so I made the perfect specimen." He waved his hand. "It's actually kind of boring, I ran a few missions for them but they didn't really have any control over me and after the first Waning I was part of, I fucked off and vowed to take them down. They tried to make Hollows a couple more times but they all went wrong."

He scowled suddenly at Alfred.

"But you're a whole other story," he said shrewdly. "Clearly Arthur didn't want you to have any memories - or _someone _didn't, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe the All Saints Army planted you - or, at the very least, sent you out that night on your own, without any back-up, knowing full well that Arthur would kill you." Gilbert shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "Who knows?"

Alfred got up, tossing a few coins onto the table.

"Hey, where you going?" Gilbert asked.

"I need to find Arthur," Alfred replied. "Tell Feliciano I'm sorry about the food."

"'S'fine, I'll eat it," Gilbert said; but Alfred was gone, banging out of _The Blood Olive _and into the street.

Gilbert helped himself to Alfred's barely-touched drink as Francis drifted up through the table and settled in the vacated seat.

"Arthur's going to kill you," he said solemnly.

"Whatever. I don't owe that stuck-up vampire a damn thing." Gilbert shrugged. "Besides, I kept some of his secrets. I didn't say we saw him in _The Whitby Bay _as we passed."

He grinned.

"And I didn't say a _thing _about the Court of Bones," he said. "I don't think Mr Pretty-Face needs to know that his leech husband is planning to throw him into the pit _quite _yet, do you?"

Francis rolled his eyes.

"Only because _you _have designs upon the Court of Bones as well, mon ami," he said.

"Well, yeah." Gilbert finally slid his leather case away, tucking it inside his coat. "Maybe Arthur Kirkland will finally be of some use to me after all."

* * *

"I can't believe you didn't invite me to your wedding," Vlad said, clapping Arthur on the back. "I'd have happily been your bridesmaid."

"It wasn't a _wedding_," Arthur groaned, putting his head in his hands.

"You got married. Sounds like a wedding to me."

Arthur grumbled to himself, leaning further over the table. _The Whitby Bay _was a small pub, cosy with red velvet upholstery, dimly-lit with candles on the walls and suspended from old wrought-iron chandeliers. It was a favourite with vampires because they brewed the beer with blood in.

"It's... complicated," Arthur said in a low voice. "And I don't mean that in a trite manner. I mean it in an 'I created him and I don't know how long it'll be until he realises I killed him and hacked off his head' sort of way."

"...You did what?"

"Well, I need a sacrifice, don't I?"

"_Ohh_." Vlad raised his eyebrows. "You mean for the Court of Bones? You'll be the first one in a long time to get in - if they accept you."

"I'm five hundred and have a blood offering," Arthur said haughtily. "They have no reason to reject me."

Vlad nodded.

"It's an impressive age. Hardly anyone gets to five hundred anymore. I'm four hundred and seventy-eight - just twenty-two more Wanings to get through before I can join too."

Arthur gave a wan smile.

"Well, that's just it, isn't it? I might be killed sooner than the All Souls Ball. ...Truth be told, I almost died tonight."

"Goodness, you're having a pretty adventurous life all of a sudden!"

"It wasn't me, it was that idiot Alfred."

Vlad looked blankly at him.

"Alfred is the husband in question," Arthur said.

"Ah, I see."

"Oh, Hell, he's _far _more trouble than I could ever have expected!" Arthur moaned. "He's obssessed with the Other Realm and I know if _I _don't take him, he'll just slip off on his own; and he's so _violent_, he's killed _two _people with the bayonet I gave him, and I mean _one _is bad enough but _two_, this close to The Waning...? It's probably not his fault, he _is _made of a lot of criminals and I think his hands belonged to a serial killer-"

"Creating a patchwork reanimation seems like it was a lot of trouble," Vlad interrupted. "Why not just sire another vampire if you wanted a quick sacrifice?"

Arthur shook his head.

"He wasn't a virgin," he said, "and besides, even if he had been, he would have had his memories and I didn't want that. Of course, a Hollow would have been no good, either."

Vlad tilted his head.

"Wait... So you knew this guy before?"

"Yes," Arthur admitted. "He... he was... well, I don't want to say my 'lover', we rarely did anything of the sort, but there was a close romantic bond of a kind." He paused. "I... I loved him."

"But you killed him, cut off his head and stuck it on the top of your craft project?"

"He changed," Arthur sighed, looking down at his beer. "He had always been so kind and sweet-tempered, even through the Hell we saw in Europe in the Forties; but not long after he joined the All Saints Army, he became very different. He was suddenly very cold towards me, unpleasant and even cruel. A-and on the last Waning, he tried to kill me."

"...And this is your revenge?"

"I can't forgive it. He's always known that I'm a vampire and he never hated me for it; to despise me for it now, at the command of a cobbled-together army, is an affront. How little he must have thought of me beneath it all! Even if he was brainwashed, it only proves how weak he was, how open he must have been to being indoctrinated."

Vlad shook his head.

"It seems very convoluted to me," he muttered.

"It works out on all fronts," Arthur replied. "Entrance to the Court of Bones isn't a quick fix; you can't just pick up the first young morsel you come across and offer them as a sacrifice. The price is much greater than that. It... it must be someone you love."

Vlad pressed his hands together gleefully.

"And you still love Alfred?"

"Of course I do." Arthur frowned. "Living with him these past few days has been very difficult. He is... much returned to the way he was before. He is kind and cheerful and he _smiles _at me the way he used to and it hurts because I know that it's only that he doesn't remember loathing me. He begs for intimacy and yet he told me, last year, on that night, that he never wanted to be touched by me again." He looked up at Vlad sadly. "He kissed me tonight and for a moment I couldn't fight it. He held me the way he used to. I had to run - it was that or go mad with grief."

Vlad shrugged, indifferent.

"Then keep him."

"No," Arthur shook his head. "I've made up my mind to join the Court of Bones. There's nothing left for me here - not in this realm or the human one. Everything will be fair: the Elders get an offering, I get a ticket out of this circus and Alfred F. Jones gets what he deserves."

* * *

Arthur wasn't in the house when Alfred returned, his calls echoing throughout the neat pastel rooms. Alfred didn't know if he was glad or not - just where the hell _had _Arthur run off to? - but he wasn't going to waste the opportunity to have a rummage around without the vampire knowing.

He headed straight upstairs to the bedroom and put on the light, standing in the doorway to get his head straight. The bed was pristinely-made, Arthur having spent a good ten minutes on getting it perfect, and the coffin was neatly pressed in alongside it. Alfred went right to it and took off the lid, tossing it onto the bed; and then he began to pull out the innards, the blankets and pillows and the sheet beneath, in search of clues, trinkets, _anything _Arthur might have kept of Alfred's original person.

It was a very old coffin, crude and without lining, just plain wood, and there wasn't anywhere to hide anything - and so, after shaking everything out, he was forced to admit to empty-handedness.

He went through the wardrobe. It was more-or-less what he had been expecting: all of Arthur's clothes, crisp shirts and tailored waistcoats and silk neckties, hung like neat skins side-by-side. His shoes were crowded beneath in a sharp row of polished leather. Towards the back, nestled in the dark, he found a dark green army uniform - the officer's kind, he guessed, judging by the Sam Browne belt. It was worse for wear, almost worn through in places, and it smelt like mud and chemicals. He pulled it forward to see the tab sewn into the back of the neck: _Major Arthur Kirkland, Royal St George's Brigadiers_. Underneath it had the name of the maker and the year, 1913.

He pushed it aside and found another hanging garment behind it, the older uniform, the red coat with buff facings and breeches - the sort toy soldiers wore. A Victorian naval uniform behind this, and then an earlier one, Georgian, thin to the touch. These were the tangible proof of Arthur's story, Alfred realised, these military dresses with his name on them; he knew vampires lived for centuries if left to their own devices but this was unsettling, too concrete, because Arthur looked like he was in his mid-twenties and it was strange to think that he had looked that way for almost five centuries.

He came to the back. Here another green uniform rested, almost identical to the First World War one, down to the belt over the flattened chest; it was a little less battered, however, and of a thicker wool. A dog-tag on its chain hung around the collar, the name_ Kirkland, Arthur _and lines of serial numbers indented into the worn metal. There was something else, too, draped over the shoulders of this one: a heavy leather garment. Alfred reached for it and pulled it out, his fingers grasping the fur collar.

It was a bomber jacket in brown leather, soft and worn, with hand-painted motifs: a star at the heart, a plane on the sleeve, a large crooked '50' on the back, cracked and faded. He could smell the deep burn of engine oil on it.

He sat on the edge of the bed with the jacket on his lap, running his fingers over it, examining its every last inch. It didn't feel familiar, as such, but there was something about it when he _looked _at it...

He couldn't find a name, however, or anything within it to indicate who it might have belonged to. If it was Arthur's, then, that was strange - because his name was painstakingly etched into the neck of every single other uniform.

...Was it _his_?

There was nothing to say that it was - but then Alfred didn't remember who he had been. That guy, Matthew, he had called him Alfred, so he supposed 'Alfred' _was _actually his proper name, but he had nothing else to go on other than the fact that 'Alfred' had been in the All Saints Army before Arthur had killed him. This certainly didn't look like an All Saints Army garment - they seemed to have standardised black-and-grey uniforms.

He slipped it on but it didn't really fit very well; his shoulders were too broad and his arms a little long, the cuffs resting just above his wrists. He took it off and hung it back where he had found it, carefully pushing all the uniforms back. He didn't want Arthur to notice.

He went through all the drawers and the bookshelves, finding nothing. At last he went to Arthur's dresser and sat on the balding fainting couch, going half-heartedly through all of Arthur's tiny glass dishes filled with pins and cufflinks.

...The truth was, Alfred didn't know if he should believe Gilbert. Certainly he seemed to have his own agenda and it was no secret that he and Arthur didn't exactly see eye-to-eye. It was possible that Gilbert was just stirring things up, trying to turn Alfred's trust against Arthur.

Then again... Arthur _was _behaving strangely and it was true that he had never made his reasons for creating Alfred clear. He professed to have suddenly become lonely but Alfred didn't buy it, not when Arthur was so jumpy in his presence. And... well, that Arthur had been spooked by the kiss (and by the fact that he had been enjoying it) was all the more peculiar. Perhaps, then, it stood to reason that Arthur _had _murdered him after all.

_Why_, then? Given that Alfred (well, his original self) had purportedly been in the All Saints Army, killing in self-defence on Arthur's part seemed plausible. However, the taking of his head and attaching it to a concocted Frankenhusband reeked of pre-meditated murder to Alfred - so the real question wasn't why, as such, but rather why _him_?

Of course, the only logical explanation was that he and Arthur had known each before. That would explain why Arthur would go to such lengths to prevent the revived Alfred from retaining his memory - and how he would know (perhaps) that Alfred hadn't been a virgin. He hadn't wanted a Hollow - and he hadn't wanted a sired vampire.

He had wanted a blank slate.

Alfred unwound the scarf and tossed it over the edge of the fainting couch; then reached to the lace shawl draped over the mirror, throwing it back so he could see his reflection. He ran his fingers over the stitches, feeling the bumps beneath his fingers. He was like fabric; because these would never heal, he would need the stitches to hold him together for as long as he lived. His wedding ring glinted against the black thread and he wondered whose ring it had been - for he didn't think Arthur had bought them for the purpose. His was a bit of a tight fit; it left an indent whenever he twisted it.

Something else glinted at the coner of his eye, hung over the far edge of the mirror. He glanced towards it, then reached to grasp it, unhooking its chain from the corner of the wooden frame.

It was a single metal dog-tag on a worn ball-chain; scratched, a little dented at the lower corner. He was reminded of the singular tag around the neck of Arthur's uniform as he turned it over, expecting to see _Kirkland, Arthur _all over again.

_Pvt, United States Army_

_07-04-1924_

_11-766550_

_Blood type: B-_

He looked at the name, his heart pounding.

_Jones, Alfred Franklin_

* * *

**11** was the WWII-era area serial code for Massachusetts; in this AU I feel like Alfred is from Boston, haha.

**Lukas **is Norway (apparently this is a Hima-approved name for him despite it being unofficial?) and **Vlad **is Romania - absolutely named after Vlad the Impaler, aka Count Dracula. There don't seem to even be any fanon names for Romania so I had to take creative liberty because I wanted him in here. Romania is a cutie in _Hetalia _and he even canonly has fangs - so he _has _to be a vampire in this universe! He was also seen with England in his first (and only, so far) appearance in the anime so I thought they could be vampire buddies. :3

(Oh, and the female soldier in the Jeep was Belarus!)

_The Whitby Bay _is named such after... well, the bay in Whitby, England, which is where Dracula first lands in the book.

Hope I can get back on track with updates!

(Incidentally, I don't know if anyone's ever seen the 'USUK Fanfiction Bingo' thing on tumblr but I just struck off the middle one: America's bomber jacket. Hahaha.)


	5. V

I'm two weeks behind with this update and for that I apologise - this chapter ended up being rather long! o.O

Thank you to: **Tamitan, saketini, Guest, **another **Guest, OnceUponaDream, PChesire, octopus, Guest, dozefallsdownthestairs, Winter-Grown-Lily, MarichinoCherry, Gues, BlakliteLuminus, Lola, Nuclear Taste, Guest, Empress Vegah, Cafe **and **i Mel-chan i**!

In answer to the anon Guest: No, the "Hollow" idea did not come from _Bleach_, though I am aware that this name is also used in that series (I'm not sure what a Hollow is in _Bleach_). It is based more on _Hellsing_, in which virgins of the opposite gender to the vampire sire also become vampires and anyone else bitten (virgin of same gender or non-virgins of both genders) become "ghouls", which are... zombies, basically. In this story, however, the equivalent - a Hollow - is still a sort of zombie but more of a beserker kind; they don't eat flesh but kill relentlessly until they are destroyed. They also don't decompose and lurch slowly like zombies; conversely they are very fast and coordinated.

The Waning

V

Alfred hadn't heard Arthur come in, having retired at around half five in the morning, with the sun just beginning to peek over the velvet horizon as he pulled the covers over his head. He awoke, drowsy and gritty-mouthed, at about ten - and he could hear Arthur's slow breathing then, finding him back in the coffin alongside the bed.

A pang of disappointment had gone through him; but then, what had he been expecting after last night?

He'd rolled over and gone back to sleep, finally surfacing at two in the afternoon and quietly getting dressed, not wanting to disturb Arthur (who was huddled under his sheet, one pale hand visible over the side of the old wood).

He didn't want to be asked where he was going.

He got breakfast from Belle's Bakery, right in the heart of the pretty town square of Midnight Marches; three cinnamon-dusted doughnuts in a paper bag, on which he munched happily as he crossed the wide street to the poky little shop he'd passed plenty of times en route to _The Blood Olive_.

He had seen the owner, a translucent Chinese spirit in Han dynasty clothing, outside before, obssessively sweeping the path - but he had never been inside, though it had piqued his interest, for the outer frame of the door was cluttered with all manner of bright lucky charms and talismans.

A bell chimed as he stepped through into the shop and he was immediately forced to duck , the ceiling strung with colourful kites in the shapes of fish and birds and gilt cages with all sorts of strange creatures twittering within; phoenixes, griffins, wyverns, baby dragons, both Asian and European. There was a beautiful blue specimen, palm-sized, coiled around the central bar of its prison - and he entertained briefly the notion of going home with it, wondering what Arthur would say.

He passed on, down the steps into the belly of the shop. There was a large fishtank along the far wall, within long carp with scales of purest gold and kappas and grindylows and frogs with markings like crowns on their heads. The rest of the walls were lined floor to ceiling with books; and in every remaining inch of space all manner of peculiar items, cracked mirrors, empty picture frames, battered brooms, weathered old sticks that might be wands, crystal balls, mismatched teasets, broken clocks and strange-coloured shoes.

The till - a heavy old iron thing - was set upon a long wooden desk; and behind this jars of brightly-coloured liquids and powders labelled with Chinese characters. Alfred stepped closer, squinting at them.

"Can I help you?"

Alfred jumped, almost dropping his doughnuts; he turned sharply, his heart pouding, to find Yao Wang floating behind him.

"I, uh... y-yes, I was just...!" Alfred breathed out shakily. "Jeez, you scared the life outta me!"

"You look as though you've already had the life removed from you," Yao said airily. "Though by what method, I could not say." He drifted past Alfred. "What do you want?"

"I want a... well, like a sleeping potion..." Alfred frowned, aware he sounded fairly idiotic. "...Or something."

"Or something?" Yao shot him a lazy look. "What is its purpose? I happen to have a spinning wheel in the back, it's very good for this sort of thing."

Alfred shook his head.

"No, I need something I can put in his tea." He took another bite of doughnut, chewing thoughtfully. "...Basically I need something that will knock out a vampire for a few hours."

Yao's eyebrows arched.

"A vampire?" He looked at Alfred again, this time with more prudence. "Ah, I see. You are the one I have heard rumours about - the vampire Kirkland's husband."

Alfred rolled his eyes.

"News sure travels fast around here," he muttered.

"News as strange as that, yes," Yao agreed. "It's peculiar behaviour on the part of Kirkland."

"Yeah, he's a weird one." Alfred gave a nod. "So I need him out for the count for a few hours tonight; so I can do some digging."

"I see." Yao gave a curt nod and drifted through the table to scan the jars and bottles. "I think I can find something for your needs."

Thankfully Yao didn't seem to be the nosy type; he didn't ask any more questions as he ran his spectral fingers over the jars, pulling out a few and returning them moments later, before settling on one filled with a bright green powder.

"This one should do it," Yao said carefully, taking it down and bringing it to the silver scales upon the desk; he gave a neat twist to the lid and began to pour the powder into the weighing dish. "Beware, it is very potent. It will knock out a nosferatu for six hours; a being like yourself, considerably longer. Watch that you do not ingest any by mistake."

"No, no, I'll be really careful," Alfred said, watching him measure out a precise amount and transfer it to a small paper bag. "So does it dissolve...?"

"Yes. It would be best within a strong beverage. You mentioned tea...?"

"Well, he takes blood in it."

Yao gave a sage nod.

"That will disguise it well enough." He handed Alfred the bag. "Will that be all?"

"Uh... yeah, I guess so."

Alfred paid him for the powdered potion and left before he bought something really stupid (like the self-sweeping broom dancing its way around the edges of the shop, his for a bargain price), tucking his purchase deep into the pocket of his jacket. He finished his doughnuts and then went back to Belle's to get something light for when Arthur woke up.

"My, I can't keep you away!" Belle said, smiling at him from behind the counter. "My brother will think you have a notion for me!"

Alfred, who had seen Belle's imposing brother lurking around the back of the shop, grinned and flashed his ring.

"Tell him he shouldn't worry," he said. "I'm afraid I'm spoken for."

"Oh, yes." Belle rested her chin on her hands. "I should have known Arthur's flirting would come to nothing."

Alfred looked up from the glass in surprise.

"Arthur's... _flirting_?"

"Mm hmm."

Alfred shook his head in disbelief.

"We're talking about the same Arthur, right? Pointy teeth, pasty skin, eyebrows like a brick wall?"

"I like them. They're... distinguished." Belle smiled cheerfully. "But I knew he was only teasing. He just has a nice manner, is all. So polite."

Alfred snorted.

"Not to me," he muttered. "He doesn't seem to like me very much. I guess he only likes pretty blonde witches."

"Well, you're a pretty blonde... whatever-you-are." Belle tilted her head. "He must like you a little bit, you know. He wouldn't have you near him otherwise. Vampires are quite particular like that."

"Oh yeah?" Alfred folded his arms on top of the counter. "Okay, well, if you know him so well, tell me what he would like from your selection."

On Belle's recommendation, he left with a box of various fresh cream-filled concoctions and flaky scones; by the clock tower above the town hall, he could see that it was nearing half-past three, so he started back up the path towards the house.

Of course, he didn't plan to put Arthur to sleep just yet. Yao had said it worked for six hours and he wanted Arthur out of it during the three-hour window the gate was open. He knew by now that Arthur took a cup of tea at around ten, maybe half-past, and he made it his plan to slip the potion in then to give it an hour or so to work.

Arthur still wasn't up when he got back, so he left the cakes on the kitchen counter and set the kettle to boil, padding upstairs to wake him. He didn't want him to sleep too late, it might hinder the potion if he was well-rested.

He didn't know quite how to act around Arthur today. He wanted to behave normally, to put Arthur at ease, not make him suspicious - for Alfred himself was reserving judgement on Arthur Kirkland until he had done a bit of investigation. Gilbert's words seemed to ring true enough when he considered the weight of them, coupled with Arthur's possession of a dogtag that read 'Alfred Franklin Jones', but Alfred didn't remember a thing about who any part of him had been and he needed to find out more before he made an enemy of the vampire.

Arthur, meanwhile, made it more difficult. It was _he _who had fled last night without a word of explanation; and _he _who had stayed out all night, Hell-knows-where. It followed, therefore, that Alfred didn't know quite how to take him today.

So he approached the coffin with caution, gently taking the edge of the sheet and pulling it back. Arthur was very dishevelled beneath it, still half-dressed, his hair sticking up on one side. He grimaced at the light, putting an arm over his eyes and turning over; he groped blindly for the sheet, which Alfred held out of his reach.

"Come on, time to get up!" Alfred sat on the edge of the coffin, watching the vampire writhe. "What's the matter?"

"Hungover," Arthur moaned, kicking half-heartedly at Alfred. "Leave me _alone_." He buried his face in his pillow, going quite still. "Just... leave me to _die_..."

"You're already dead." This was becoming a bit of a trope, Alfred felt. "Get _up_, Arthur."

No answer.

"I'm making tea and I've got breakfast waiting," Alfred said determinedly.

Arthur didn't seem too interested in the breakfast part but the promise of tea seemed to rouse him, for he knelt up, wild-haired, his green eyes half-open. He looked at Alfred and scowled.

"Get off my bloody coffin!" he grumbled, pushing at him. "It won't hold your fat arse!"

"Fine, fine." Alfred rose huffily, snatching up Arthur's quilted robe and throwing it over him. "Put that on and come downstairs."

Arthur gave another unearthly moan but Alfred was done with him, leaving the room to trot back downstairs and lay out the breakfast. He brewed the tea and put out the blood in its prim little jug and made himself a cup of coffee, sitting at the table to wait. Eventually Arthur descended, his robe wrapped tightly around him, and never before had he looked more like the walking undead.

"I didn't know vampires drank anything other than blood," Alfred said pleasantly. "And tea, in your case."

"Not often," Arthur rasped, reaching for the teapot. "But I needed a stiff drink after last night."

"How _many _stiff drinks, exactly?"

"Oh, shut _up_." Arthur nursed his tea, looking vaguely somewhere past Alfred's shoulder. "...You came straight home?"

"I got something to eat at _The Blood Olive_, then I did, yeah."

"I see." Arthur nodded.

"Where did _you _go?" Alfred asked, doing his best to be nonchalant.

"Just a pub." Arthur seemed to hesitate. "..._The Whitby Bay_, it's called. Caters to vampires, has a bit of blood in the beer."

"You were with other vampires?"

"Just the one." Arthur sipped his tea. "Vlad. He's an old friend."

"_Vlad_?" Alfred couldn't help repeating the name; wasn't that the name of the vampire that had killed Gilbert...?

"Yes." Arthur looked pointedly at him, his severe eyebrows arching. "You've been speaking to Gilbert, I see."

"Oh, uh... a-a little." Alfred stirred distractedly at his coffee, cursing at not having a better poker face. "He was at _The Blood Olive _last night."

"What else did he say - other than that Vlad brutally murdered him?"

"J-just how much he hates you."

Arthur gave a nod, seeming to buy this. Alfred pushed the plate towards him.

"I got you scones," he said. "Belle said you liked them."

"Oh." Arthur seemed surprised. "Yes, I... I suppose I do."

Alfred watched him fiddle with one through the steam of his coffee; the way he carefully cut it in half and arranged it on his plate, loaded his knife with precise globs of cream and jam, spreading both thick and careful, his brow knotted in concentration...

Alfred was suddenly struck with the notion that he had seen it before. He straightened, unsettled, and Arthur glanced at him in irritation.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing." Alfred shook his head. "Just... I don't know, I guess I've never seen you so interested in food before. You said you don't eat much."

"I don't," Arthur agreed, "but I _do _like scones, I must admit - and no-one makes them better than Belle."

"Uh huh." Alfred watched him take a bite of his half-scone, his pointed teeth cleaving neatly through the crumbling base. "She spoke very highly of you."

"Oh, that's her way." Arthur said this after a moment's respite, savouring his mouthful and dabbing at his chin. "She's terribly nice."

"She seems to know you quite well."

"She doesn't," Arthur said coldly. "Of that I assure you." He shot Alfred a furtive look. "I do hope you're not being jealous."

Alfred rolled his eyes.

"As if."

"Good. I haven't the time for petty domesticities." Arthur sipped at his tea. "...Besides, _you're _the one with the ring on your finger."

"If it _is _my ring," Alfred replied coolly. "It's certainly not my finger."

Arthur glanced at him, his green eyes cold.

"That's a peculiar thing to say all of a sudden," he said. "There's never been any pretense on the matter."

"I know." Alfred shrugged, feeling that Arthur had backed him into a corner. "Forget it."

"As you wish." Arthur went back to his scone.

Alfred frowned at him. There was no denying that the walls were firmly back up - two steps, at least, in the wrong direction. Alfred didn't know how long it would take to start earning Arthur's trust again but frankly he felt that he didn't have time for it. If he wanted answers to his many burning questions then all he could do was try his best to put the skittish vampire at ease.

Still, he wondered at it; he, with a wedding ring on his finger, having a cream-tea breakfast with his murderer.

When breakfast was over, Arthur pushed away his plate and ran his fingers through his matted hair.

"I need to take a bath," he said; and he looked at Alfred. "You ought to have one too. Your stitches need to be kept clean."

"Oh. Okay." Alfred wanted to say "Together?" just to be facetious but thought that Arthur might rip his throat out so he kept stum.

"I'll go and run the bath," Arthur said absently, rising. "It takes the water a little while to warm up."

He padded off, leaving Alfred to clear up; which Alfred was actually glad of, since he could do it quicker without Arthur fussing around him telling him to be careful with those gold-rimmed teacups and dainty plates with hand-painted roses. He could hear the creak of old pipes and thrum of running water overhead as he washed up.

He put the dishes away wherever he felt they should go, dried off his hands and went upstairs. The door to the bathroom was ajar, a film of low-lying steam wisping through the gap; and he went to it, pushing the door open and leaning in.

Of course, he hadn't expected Arthur to be _in _the bath, surely he'd have shut the door; but he was and he hadn't and now he turned his gaze on Alfred lazily, the green of his eyes very intense.

"O-oh, Arthur, I'm sorry, I-" Alfred stepped back hurriedly.

"I wondered what was taking you so long," Arthur interrupted calmly, shifting to make room for Alfred. "Come on."

Alfred _stared _at him.

"Uhh..."

"What's the matter?" Arthur leaned over, folding his arms on the rim of the white tub.

"I, uh... I-I didn't think you meant..." Alfred swallowed. "You know... _together_."

Arthur rolled his eyes.

"Don't be so childish," he sighed. "We're married, after all; and I don't like to waste water. And that besides, who will wash your stitches for you?"

"I... I'm fairly sure I can manage-"

"No," Arthur interrupted dismissively. "I can just imagine you scrubbing at them. You need to be gentle."

"Then I'll be gentle!"

Arthur moved, sliding up the side of the bathtub to sit on the edge of it; he gave the water a lazy kick.

"Get in," he said.

Alfred didn't really want to; not because he was embarrassed, exactly, because yes he and Arthur _were _married and although they hadn't actually _done _anything, he found, on thinking about it, that it wouldn't bother him to see Arthur naked and vice versa.

His problem lay with the absurdity of it: that Arthur couldn't even _kiss _him before fleeing and yet so calmly ordered him to share his bath? And what about the bed? The vampire wouldn't even _sleep _next to him!

"No," Alfred said, shaking his head. "This is weird. F-for you, I mean."

"If you mean the thing with the bed," Arthur said, "then that is nothing personal. It's nothing to do with you. I simply prefer a coffin - _my _coffin."

"I..." Alfred steeled himself, clenching his fists. "I meant the kiss."

Arthur froze. He looked at Alfred, damp, his blonde hair clinging. He seemed very vulnerable all of a sudden.

Alfred wished he hadn't said anything.

"A-and," he went on lamely, to cover it up, "I-I guess I... well, what if you're just sick of me? What are you planning to do, drown me?"

"I could just bite your ring finger off if I was sick of you," Arthur said tiredly. He shivered. "Won't you get in?"

Alfred's curiosity got the better of him. He took off his glasses and put them on the edge of the sink, pulling off his clothes on his way to the tub. He stood at the edge in his underwear. Arthur leaned down and picked up a cloth, wringing it out.

"In," he said. "I can't wash you from there."

Alfred hesitated; then peeled down his underwear and stepped out of it. He stood, breathing, looking intently at the bubbles. He wasn't humiliated but definitely alight, aware, his skin prickling. He glanced up through his eyelashes - just to see if Arthur was looking at him, inspecting him.

He wasn't.

"You seem to forget," Arthur said absently, "that it was I who put your body together."

"Oh." Alfred exhaled. He felt stupid all of a sudden. "...Of course you did."

He stepped into the bath and sat down, the water warm and thick with bubbles, rising to his waist.

"Besides," Arthur went on, putting his wet legs either side of him, "I must tell you that vampires have little to no libido. I don't find this particularly intimate - not in _that _way, at least."

He started to gently rub at Alfred's stitches with the wet cloth; his neck, his shoulders, his wrists, down the length of his spine, his thighs. Alfred sat very still, his head down, and let him do it. Arthur's proximity, his gentleness, stirred something within him - but it wasn't desire, for this was nonsensically nonsexual, it was...

Well. He didn't know. Not _memory_, exactly, but something, _something_.

"And you, well, I've said it before," Arthur went on, invested in his task. "But you're fairly simplistic in your construction. No circulatory system, you see? I didn't want to go putting blood in you for obvious reasons. You might feel desire but you won't be able to act on it."

"I suppose I should be thankful," Alfred said, looking at the ceiling. "At least you didn't create me to be a sentient sex doll."

"That would have been a lot of extra work." Arthur gave a sigh. "Besides, you don't have to assume that I created you for a specific _reason_."

"Then why _did _you create me?"

"Perhaps I just wanted company from someone like me."

Alfred finally glanced at him, frowning over his steamy shoulder.

"How am I like you?" he asked peevishly. "You're a vampire, I'm-"

"I told you, vampires are manufactured creatures. I was human once, too; and alive. I am of the old order, a sacrifice of the church, a tool of politics. My head would have bought a month's obedience. I was intended for a coin."

"And me?" Alfred asked quietly, putting his hands on his knees. "Am I a coin too?"

"You're asking silly questions now."

"Why is it silly to want to know?" Alfred paused. "M-maybe I don't trust you."

"No, I don't think you do," Arthur hummed. "I suppose I don't blame you. A bit suspect, isn't it?"

"Heh. I knew it." Alfred grinned, enjoying the feel of Arthur soaping up his back with the warm cloth. "You're not the type."

"Not the type for what?"

"Marriage." Again, a pause. "...Love."

"What an arbitrary thing to say." Arthur clicked his tongue in impatience. "You know nothing about me."

"I know that you don't like me."

"No you don't." Arthur sighed, stopping. "...Do you _truly _think that I hate you, Alfred?"

Again, Alfred suddenly felt very cornered; this time, however, it was perfectly self-inflicted and he knew it. He said nothing. He felt Arthur rest his head between his shoulder blades, his hair cool and damp.

"Because I don't," Arthur said quietly. "Try as I might... I cannot hate you."

"But you don't _love _me either," Alfred said. "I'm not _stupid_, I-"

"No, perhaps not," Arthur muttered, his cold lips forming the words against Alfred's spine.

"Then what?"

"Oh, I don't know. Something in-between - like us. Purgatory, you see. That is what we are." Arthur exhaled against his wet skin, sending a shiver down Alfred's spine. "...You and I, pure purgatory in the night. We are so very nearly nothing."

"You-"

"Happiness evades us," Arthur whispered, "and so does despair."

* * *

_Of course, the last thing he remembered was dying._

_It had hurt - but only for a moment. The vampire - starving, beaten, as savage as a lion or a bear - had been mercifully quick. Perhaps he shouldn't have tried to help Brother Geoffrey, who had already been bleeding to death when Arthur tried to drag the creature off him._

_They hadn't been that far from the monastery: only out at the back in the woods, with baskets in the dull gloaming, deepest blue - and they unspeaking. There was a vow of silence that evening._

_Somebody must have heard them scream._

_When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking up at the vast carved ceiling of the church, the rich colours of the stained-glass windows aglitter by beeswax candles. He smelt the thick rosewood stench of blood and glanced to the wall._

_The remains of Brother Geoffrey were crumpled at the skirting, a vast splatter of gore over the stones. He had three heavy crossbow shafts embedded within his twisted corpse. Arthur sat up. He was in a cheap coffin set atop the altar; it was damp with gravesoil and he was in the unshapely sackcloth clothing associated with a pauper's funeral. He looked to the abbott - who stood in his robes, encircled by the rest of the higher order, all armed with crossbows and daggers._

_"Well done, Brother Arthur." The abbott stepped towards the altar; his fingertips were smeared with blood. "You are pure. You are a child of the Church."_

_The heavy bolted door at the end of the aisle opened out into the night._

_"You have three nights to do your duty, vampyre - and then we will come for you."_

* * *

"Here."

Arthur, curled up in his armchair with a heavy volume of Romantic poetry, looked at him with suspicion.

"What's this?" he asked shrewishly.

"A cup of tea." Alfred held it out on its saucer. "What does it look like?"

"It looks like strange behaviour from you, that's what."

"Well, I know you like a cup of tea at this time of night," Alfred reasoned, "and you looked so comfortable, I just thought..." He shrugged. "You know. That I'd make it, I guess."

"Hmm." Arthur set aside the book and took the saucer. He frowned at the tea. "...What's in it?"

"Poison, obviously."

"I daresay."

"There's milk and a splash of blood, if that's what you mean."

"If this is your way of wheedling another trip through the gate this evening, you can forget it." Arthur glared at him. "I mean it."

"Oh, no, I..." Alfred gave what he hoped was a convincing shrug. "I guess I'm over that now. I almost burst my stitches running last night!"

"I see." Arthur didn't look terribly convinced; but he took a sip of the tea, at least. "...Hm."

"How is it?"

"Passable, I suppose." Arthur took another mouthful despite his words. "...Could do with a drop more blood."

"I'll get the jug." Alfred skipped away gleefully. "I was gonna make myself some coffee anyway."

He still had half the packet of the sleeping powder left, since Yao seemed to have given him rather a lot. He tucked it back into his pocket and made himself a mug of black coffee, returning to the living room with it and the little silver jug of blood on a tray with the few remaining scones. Arthur had gone back to his book, though he looked up again in curiosity at the ceremonious arranging of the tea-party.

"Goodness," he said dryly, reaching for the jug, "what's the occasion?"

"Nothing - I just figured we should finish these scones before they go all hard and crusty." Halfway through spreading jam over a scone, Alfred used his knife to point at the book. "Whatcha reading?"

"A selection of Romantic poetry."

"Oh yeah? What's that, like... _Romeo and Juliet_?"

"No, this is Romantic with a capital 'r', you see."

"What's the difference?"

"Romantic with a capital 'r' was a literary movement - it's gothic melodrama more than anything else, I suppose. I knew some of them, actually. Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge-"

"Oh, yeah! _Rime of the Ancient Mariner_, right? And _Christabel_?" Alfred grinned. "Hey, isn't _Christabel _about a vampire?"

Arthur simply blinked at him, speechless.

"What?" Alfred frowned. "...Isn't it?"

"No, it is," Arthur said faintly. "How do you know what?"

Alfred puffed out his cheeks in annoyance.

"I'm not _stupid_, you know. I know _some _stuff."

"Yes, but... _how _do you know that? Where did you hear it?"

"Oh." Alfred looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought; he scoured his brain for the instance in which he had become party to this trivia but found that he had no explanation. It had simply come to his tongue without any input from his mind. "...I don't know."

He looked at Arthur, who was watching him guardedly. How odd.

"Can I see the book, please?" Alfred put out his hand for it.

"Of course."

It seemed to Alfred that Arthur hesitated somewhat; but he put the book into Alfred's palm and distractedly fiddled about with a half-scone, slathering cream and drizzle of blood over it.

Alfred flipped through the book. Nothing about it seemed familiar to him - the red leather cover, the gold embossed writing, the neat poems on yellowed paper. He paused at _Christabel_ and _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner _but nothing in the texts jumped out at him as he scanned through their lilting arrangements. He didn't remember them.

He handed Arthur back the book and changed the subject, daring to breach the subject of Yao's shop. He didn't think Arthur would become suspicious that he had gone in given that Yao sold more or less everything under the sun, and indeed he succeeded in leading the vampire into a shrill discussion as to why under no circumstances were they getting a pet dragon no matter _how _small or well house-trained it was.

Arthur, who had been growing groggier, his speech beginning to slur, eventually slumped over the arm of his chair at around quarter past eleven. Victorious, Alfred lifted him and gently laid him out on the pastel sofa, putting a blanket over him and making sure he was comfortable. Arthur didn't stir, firmly fast asleep, and Alfred scampered light-footedly upstairs to retrieve the dog-tag from the corner of the mirror. He paused in passing the wardrobe; then slid it open and leaned in, pulling the leather bomber jacket out and slipping it on. It was still a little ill-fitting, he hadn't expected otherwise, but it felt right. He pulled the fur collar against the back of his neck and peeled up the zip.

Bayonet tucked safely into his belt, he stole out of the house.

* * *

Tonight the gate opened out into an alleyway, greenish by the old lamps swinging overhead. His knife clamped tight in his palm, Alfred scuttled to the end of the alley and glanced around. The wide street beyond was empty but he could hear the music and laughter from the Guising Festival's second night drifting over the crooked rooftops.

He drew the bomber jacket closer around himself, the fur warm against his jaw, and went out into the street.

He didn't have too much of a plan, it was true - and he knew that this was risky, coming back alone after killing an All Saints soldier the night before. He didn't like to think of himself as reliant on Arthur but he couldn't deny that the vampire was the faster and stronger of the two of them; not to mention that he seemed to know Sleepy Hollow well enough to navigate it whilst running for his life.

Nonetheless, Alfred recalled seeing the town library last night from across the green, a grand old colonial building near the church. It was crowned with a steeple, a gold bell within, and this he could see glinting in the moonlight in the gaps between the tall skinny townhouses. He followed the path of it, steering as clear from the festival as he could. He wasn't stupid enough to tempt fate twice.

There was a chunky grey Jeep parked outside the church; it had 'ASA' in black stencilled letters on the side. It was abandoned, however, and Alfred took this to mean that its owners were within the church. He crept past it nonetheless, heading quickly over the cobbles and up the steps to the library's heavy doors.

They were locked.

He pulled and rattled at them for some moments, frustrated, giving one of them a swift kick that left him hopping. He cursed, then realised that the only thing he was likely to do was draw attention to himself; so he slunk around the side and broke the first window he came to, sticking his hand through to tug down on the catch and swing it open. He hoisted himself up and through, crunching over the sprinkling of glass on the windowsill, and dropped to the tiles below.

It was dark and he found himself fumbling around the walls for a while until he found a panel of switches, which lit up ascending sections of the library with metallic booms. The place looked rather like a church, high ceilings and long windows in small glass rectangles, with stacks in the precise arrangement of pews. He made his deliberate way down the centre aisle, his footfalls clicking back their echo, taking careful stock of the sections.

_History, Politics, Fiction, Non-fiction, Travel, Classics..._

He found a laminated notecard on a small stand at the other end, perched next to a handsome marble globe. It read thus:

_For the attention of patrons,_

_All journals, quarterlies and newspaper archives have been relocated to the basement._

_Thank you,_

_Sleepy Hollow Public Library_

This was what he had been looking for; his best bet, as it were. He went through the doors and down the steps, two, three sets, finding a single white-washed door with a steel handle awaiting him at the bottom. He tried it, praying it wasn't locked, and his heart lifted when the handle obeyed his force. The door clicked open and he stepped in, feeling for the light-switch and flipping it on. It lit the basement with a single bare bulb, a much less impressive spectacle - and with an irritating buzz to boot.

Alfred stuck his bayonet back into his belt, unzipped his jacket and got to work pulling out the heavy drawers, leafing through their contents. He didn't know _exactly _what he was looking for, as such, but Gilbert had said that he, Alfred, had been killed in July.

Surely the appearance of an All Saints soldier's headless corpse had been in the newspapers?

He found a half-empty drawer towards the bottom, starting from May. Leafing through gritty newspapers by the handful, he came to July. Nothing, nothing, nothing-

Oh. Fourth of July. There it was. _SOLDIER FOUND HEADLESS_; as a subtitle, _Head still missing, All Saints Army and police on alert_. There was even a grainy photograph underneath, the typical precise-but-gruesome arrangement for the press. Alfred folded the paper over and started to read.

_The headless body of a member of supernatural control organisation the All Saints Army was this morning found on the outskirts of Sleepy Hollow, _The Light _can reveal. The corpse was discovered in the early hours by a local woodcutter; the head of the deceased was not in the immediate vicinity and remains missing. The victim has nonetheless been identified as Lieutenant Alfred Jones by the organisation, which has declined to comment further. At this time there can be only speculation regarding the indentity of the killer but the high mortality rate of All Saints soldiers suggests the murder to be the work of the hunted. Continued on Page 4._

Alfred obediently turned to the fourth page; finding himself faced with a black-and-white photograph of himself. Or his _head_, at the very least, attached to what used to be the rest of him. It was an old photo, however, the sort that came with sweetheart letters in the war - and he realised that he wasn't wearing the All Saints uniform, either. He was in what looked like a regular US Army uniform, and over one shoulder...

Alfred touched the collar of the bomber jacket. It was in the photograph, he could see part of the '50' in the dark crease of the leather.

_God damn it, that bastard vampire has some explaining to do..._

There was a _click _behind him. He froze.

"Alfred." The voice was gentle; with a soft, familiar twang. "It's okay, it's Matthew."

Alfred turned slowly, the newspaper still clutched in one hand. The other was open, ready, inching towards the bayonet. Matthew was standing in the doorway, both palms open and raised to show he meant no harm. He was not, however, alone; a tall, broad man with pale hair and a long nose stood behind him, his gun calmly raised. Alfred felt that he recognised him.

"How did you find me?" Alfred asked, taking a step back. "Down here, I mean-"

"We saw you break in," Matthew said. "We're on high alert after last night. We've been tailing you since you were spotted on St Mary's Street."

"I see," Alfred said stiffly.

"There's no need to be afraid," Matthew said gently. He took a step closer-

Alfred panicked and went for his bayonet; perhaps Arthur wasn't exactly trustworthy either but these people had tried to _kill _them last night and he wasn't going to take any chances. The large soldier seemed to think this too, for he said something in a clipped, lilting language and moved his finger to the trigger-

"No, no, Ivan, it's alright!" Matthew put out his arms, frantic. "Alfred, _whoa_, it's okay, it's okay!" He took the end of Ivan's rifle and firmly pushed it down, looking to Alfred. "Al, you've got _nothing _to fear, I promise. We're not going to hurt you."

Alfred let out a breath, his fingertips resting on the hilt of the knife. Matthew looked at him sadly.

"God, Al, what's that vampire done to you?" he whispered. "You're one of _us_, you're..."

"Last night you hunted us like a pair of rats," Alfred said guardedly. "We weren't doing any harm."

Ivan gave a snort. Matthew glared at him.

"Then," he said, glancing back to Alfred, "why did you come back tonight?"

"Because I know Arthur killed me." Alfred held up the paper. "I want to know why... why he did _this _to me." He gestured to himself; to the line of his neck holding the head of Matthew's twin brother to the torso of who-knew-who. "Why Alfred Jones?"

Matthew looked away.

"That's the thing, Al," he said. "I fear you may have... well, invited it."

000

Matthew, who had left Alfred on a bench on the outskirts of the Guising Festival with Ivan as a guard, came back with a hamburger in a brown paper wrapping, holding it out.

"Here," he said, smiling. "Double cheese, extra onions, no pickles."

Taking it, Alfred squinted at him in suspicion.

"How-"

"I'm your twin, duh."

Matthew flopped down next to him, wrestling open a paper bag of sugared doughnuts; he offered the bag to Ivan, who took one with a silent nod and moved away, blending into the crowd.

"Is this better?" Matthew asked, fishing out a doughnut for himself. "I could see you were antsy down in the library's basement - like you thought we had you cornered."

"You _did _have me cornered," Alfred replied, taking a bite of his burger. He chewed in silence for a moment. "...Thanks, this is really good."

"You're welcome." Matthew smiled at him. "...It's... it's so good to see you, I can't even... well..."

Alfred frowned at him.

"Look," he said, "I don't remember a thing. I wish I could but I don't - so I'm counting on you to help me out." He reached into the inner pocket of the bomber jacket, pulling out the dog-tag. "Arthur had this - and this jacket, too, in his closet. I was wearing this in the photo in the newspaper."

Matthew nodded, grim-mouthed.

"Yeah," he said quietly, taking the tag and looking over the information. "These are yours." He ran his thumbnail under the date of birth. "The year's wrong. I remember that."

"It is?"

"Uh huh. They're yours from the war - the Second World War, I mean. I didn't go, I wasn't old enough."

Alfred blinked at him.

"...Aren't we twins?"

"Yeah." Matthew raised his eyebrows. "You were desperate to join up so in 1942 you went over the border to the next state and lied about your age to get in. You were only sixteen."

"Well, that sounds like an awesome story," Alfred said through a mouthful of burger, "but it doesn't explain why Arthur has my stuff."

"That's where you know him from, dumbass."

"Wait..." Alfred lowered his burger, swallowing. "I knew Arthur _before_?"

"Of course you did!" Matthew rolled his eyes; he pointed up and down at Alfred's butchered body. "I'm no expert, exactly, but _this _is really weird behaviour for a vampire. They're more likely to sire if they like a companion enough to not kill them - though I guess that wasn't an option with you."

"You mean I would have become a Hollow?"

Matthew shot him a guarded look.

"How do you know about Hollows?" he asked carefully.

"Arthur told me." Alfred tilted his head. "...You seem surprised."

Matthew shook his head.

"I don't know if I am or not," he sighed, taking another bite of his doughnut. "Arthur Kirkland has always behaved very strangely around you."

"Yeah, killing me, cutting off my head and sewing it onto a jigsaw husband seems pretty strange to me," Alfred agreed dryly. "Hey, where's the rest of my body? Did you bury it? I feel like I should go lay some flowers on my own grave or something."

"Actually, we still have the rest of you at headquarters," Matthew replied; he suddenly seemed rather evasive, however, not meeting Alfred's eyes. "Perfectly preserved, of course."

Alfred didn't know what to say to that; it struck him suddenly that these people were just as peculiar as Arthur.

"I... uh..."

Matthew looked at him furtively.

"...Would you like to see?"

* * *

Arthur's up to something, Gilbert's up to something, the All Saints Army is up to something - and poor Alfred is caught up in the middle of all these dastardly schemers! o.O Poor thing, I do hope he can keep his head on straight harharHAR! XD

Things are going to start becoming a lot clearer for him in the next chapter, though! I hope you'll all join me for it!

...We're almost into December though, ughhhh. This isn't even a Halloween fic anymore, it's just a horror-comedy-romance-drama-action... thing, idk. It's okay, though, I think Hima is still doing his Halloween event too - so I'm in excellent company.

xXx


	6. VI

Sorry for the delay with this chapter, everyone! I started this other fic, omfg, and then also Christmas and New Year and work and reading for an essay I have to do... ughhhh...

However, people have been asking about this fic all throughout December, which I take as a good sign! As a warning, I might not be able to get back to it for about another month or so due to work I have to do for my MA and also I think I'd like to tackle another chapter of _Eternity _and maybe finish _Shatter _before coming back to it... I'll see. :3

...I can't believe we still haven't gotten to the actual night of _The Waning _yet! o.O Maybe I'll save that for this Halloween... (jk jk!)

Thanks to: **nuclear taste, dozefallsdownthestairs, saketini, AEngland, Kunoichi-Shea, Marichinocherry, IceQueenMirrorQueen, i Mel-chan i, LostDonut, BlakliteLuminus, Juni, Winter-Grown-Lily, The Fangirl With A 1000 Names, neighborehood, Cafe, honey-vanilla11, FireBreathingNinja **and **three Guests**!

The Waning

VI

The All Saints Army headquarters was an imposing old Colonial building at the very edge of Sleepy Hollow, skirted about by a matte of black trees. The Jeep crunched over the yellow gravel in the courtyard as they pulled up to the steps and Alfred looked up at the vast wooden doors with their heavy bolts as he stepped out of the car. He was still wary, his hand never far from his bayonet; and he wished that he'd had the good sense to take Arthur's Browning, too.

Matthew, sensing his nervousness, came to his side.

"Al, you have my word," he said, "I won't let anyone lay a finger on you."

"I'm not so worried about a finger," Alfred replied, glancing at Ivan's rifle.

"Look, just stick with me and you'll have nothing to worry about." Matthew made his way up the steps and punched a long number into the coded lock at the side of the doorframe. There was a series of heavy clicks and slides from beyond and the doors creaked open an inch or two. "Come on."

Alfred, whose only other option was to flee with no escort and no clue of how to get back to the gate - and with Ivan watching him beadily - had no choice but to follow, making his way on Matthew's heels into the large entrance hall. This had once been a grand house, that was clear to see, but in its function as the army's HQ, much of the original decor had been gutted and replaced; or else simply left to grow tired in the manner of the balding green carpet beneath their feet. There was a grand staircase in the middle of the room, arranged in wings that spiralled off either side; Matthew started for the right-hand side.

"Ivan, you can leave us," he said. "I'm just taking Alfred up to see Kiku."

A man of exceptionally few words, Ivan simply gave a nod and, with a last cold glance at Alfred, took the left staircase, vanishing into the East Wing.

"He's talkative," Alfred said dryly, following Matthew up the stairs.

"He and you have never been the greatest of friends," Matthew said, "but he's become more subdued recently. His older sister was killed some weeks ago and they were very close."

"Was she in the army, too?"

"No, just a civilian. That's what makes it worse, I suppose." A pause. "His younger sister Natasha is."

"Oh." Alfred shrugged. "I guess this army gig runs in families, huh?"

"You might say that."

The main corridor of the West Wing was narrow with small windows and ugly oppressive wallpaper curling away from the plaster. The place seemed more or less deserted, which at first struck Alfred as slightly odd; but then he supposed that this was the peak time for supernatural activity, given that the gate was only open for a three-hour window, so it was logical that most of the soldiers were out.

"So you guys only work three hours a night?"

"Not quite. There are other duties: paperwork, training, manouvres..." Matthew frowned. "And sometimes we'll have to deal with a crossover."

"What's that?"

"When something from the Banished Realm gets stuck on this side after the gate has closed. Ghosts are the worst for it, they haven't got much concept of time or place so they wander through and get lost. That's generally how hauntings begin."

"So you'll come and get rid of them?"

"Usually. They can be difficult to displace sometimes because they're not physical."

"You'll kill them even if they're not doing any harm?"

Matthew gave him a disgusted look.

"You've been on the other side too long," he said coolly. "Feeling sympathy for them. Besides, Al, harmless or not, nobody wants a ghost in their house. It's like having rats."

"Ghosts don't chew through wires," Alfred pointed out.

"Actually, we had a recent case where a giant unseen creature gnawed at the walls of a house. We never caught it."

"Probably a barghest," Alfred said. "They're usually harmless, you know."

"...And who told you that?"

"Arthur."

Matthew said nothing to this; and for a moment they proceeded in silence, Alfred of the mind that he had somehow gravely offended his twin.

"Hey, uh, I didn't-"

"Here we are."

Ignoring him, Matthew stopped at a white-painted door at the end of the corridor and punched in another code; the door whinnied open on bad hinges and Matthew ushered Alfred into what looked like it had once been a ballroom, still with the original crystal light fittings and peach walls. Several tables and desks had been set up within its expanse - and on each of these a body, laid out flat as though in wait for the undertaker. Each corpse had wires and coils hooked up to every vein and nerve and joint, it seemed, and these spread thickly in a web over every spare inch of the floor.

"Looks like Kiku's not here," Matthew noted, glancing around. "I guess he got called out."

"Who's Kiku?"

"The guy in charge of this operation," Matthew said; he looked at Alfred sadly. "...You were good friends with him."

Alfred was unmoved.

"Do _you _know where my body is?" he asked.

"Of course." Matthew beckoned, starting away. "But it would have been polite to ask permission."

"It's _my _body. I shouldn't _need _permission."

"Touche," Matthew muttered.

They came to a metal table near the back of the large room, secluded beneath a chipped plaster alcove of Rococo design. Within the nest of wires and cords lay the corpse of a man, tall and broad-shouldered, in the grey All Saints uniform.

It was, of course, headless.

"So this is the real me, huh?" Alfred circled the slab with his hands in his pockets. He couldn't say that he found the corpse familiar. "How do you keep 'em from rotting?"

"That's really Kiku's field," Matthew said. "Some kind of chemical reaction, I think."

"I see." Alfred withdrew his hand from his pocket to pluck at one of the wires - but it held fast. He leaned over to look at the neck wound. "Clean cut."

"Yeah - probably a sword."

"You reckon that's how I died?"

"No, there are bullet wounds in the chest area." Matthew gestured vaguely. "He shot you and took your head off afterwards. Probably wanted to spare it the impact."

Alfred nodded, running a curious hand over the corpse. It was cold and hard, although not rigid, it felt like there was still plenty of movement in the joints. He looked at the hands, played with the fingers; his own - though they were not his own - were bigger.

Curious, he pushed aside the coils of wire and laid his cheek to the chest of the corpse, just over the heart. He wanted to know if it was still beating.

Silence: but something at the front of his brain clicked and a picture sparked before his eyes. It was quick, fleeting, gone before he could make sense of it. He straightened, taking in a breath.

"What's wrong?" Matthew frowned.

"Nothing, I..." Alfred exhaled again, looking at the body. "I-I thought I saw something..."

"Like... a memory?"

"I don't know." Alfred put his head down again, settling his cheek as close as he could to the heart.

There! It came again but he couldn't grasp it, an image flickering in the static of his lost memory. He changed position, putting his forehead to the position, but once more only a splinter was granted to him. He couldn't cling on long enough to make it out. He stood, clicking his tongue in frustration.

"How strange," Matthew said, coming closer. "I've never known any of the corpses we've collected to react in such a way, even when we put dismembered ones back together."

"It's this, I reckon." Alfred held up his ring hand. "I don't know what kind of spell or whatever Arthur put on me but as long as I don't remove this ring, the rules of death more or less don't apply to me."

It came to him.

"Hey!" He snapped his fingers. "I've got it!"

Taking the bayonet from his belt, he took hold of his hair and started to neatly cut through the stitches holding his head on.

"Christ, what are you doing?!" Matthew flailed at him, seeming afraid to touch him all of a sudden. "Al, _don't_...!"

"It's fine," Alfred assured him. "I threw myself under a car last night and I was okay." He cut the last of the thread and took his head off, holding it by the hair. "...Oh, but are you any good at sewing? I'll need help putting it back on."

Matthew simply gave a wide-eyed nod.

"Great." Alfred slipped the bayonet back into his belt. "...Y'know, for someone who deals with vampires and werewolves and mummies on a nightly basis, you seem pretty shocked."

"I'm not used to seeing people cutting their own heads off and still talking!" Matthew said crossly.

Alfred grinned, holding out his head on an outstretched hand.

"Hey, got time for some Shakespeare?"

"What's the purpose of this?" Matthew asked, folding his arms; he really seemed rather disturbed, staying well back.

"This, duh." Alfred went to the end of the table. "I want to see if this works."

He put his head against the severed neck of his body, finagling with it, trying to line up the spinal cord. Matthew finally forced himself to move, coming to his side; he caught his arm.

"And if it _does _work," he said urgently, "...are you sure you want to know?"

Alfred paused, scowling up at him.

"Then why bring me here?!" he asked crossly. "What the hell do you want from me, Matt?"

"We want you back on our side," Matthew said. "You were one of our best."

Alfred shook him off.

"I'm not taking any damn sides until I know exactly what happened to me," he said. "I think that's a pretty reasonable request!"

"...I just don't want you to be upset."

"Matthew, I'm currently trying to screw my decapitated head back onto my lifeless body," Alfred said. "I woke up over a week ago in the middle of nowhere married to the most eccentric vampire... no, you know what, not _even _vampire! The most eccentric, obnoxious, infuriating _person _I've ever met in my life! Last night I was almost killed in the street for the crime of buying some candy corn and an ugly mask at a tacky fair. I think I'm a little _past _'being upset'!"

With a grunt, he managed to get his spine aligned and with a jolt his brain began to flood. His fingers twitched.

"Oh, Al," Matthew said miserably. "You don't know the half of it."

* * *

_The first time Alfred saw Major Arthur Kirkland - barracks, Duxford, 1942 - something went through him; a jolt, perhaps, not of understanding or comraderie but something, something. It was the dark line of his eyebrows, the crease of them over his eyes in wildest green, the sharpness of his chin, the straightness of his back. There was something world-weary about him, exhausted, Alfred recognised it even though he did not know it._

_Kirkland was one of those in charge of the new recruits; younger Brits hurried out of schools and mines, Canadians on the second wave, new and fresh-faced Americans with hearts raw from Pearl Harbor. Kirkland - pale-faced with sighs that rattled his ribcage - barked orders, impatient with their new scrambling; and he was strict and nitpicky with things like polished buttons and shined shoes. Alfred, who was untidy by nature and met his wrath within ten minutes, didn't like him-_

_And yet found himself unable to look away, watching his back, the space between his shoulders._

_It was gradual, then, but Alfred began to notice just how odd Kirkland was; how his temper was much fouler in the morning, that - by sundown - he was almost pleasant; how he went through peculiar phases of looking gaunt and half-starved and then, quite miraculously! overnight, in fact, came up a picture of health, fuller in the face and brighter in the eye. He had an inhuman quality of hearing, too, not to mention his sense of smell; he could scent a pilfered cigarette or hear the rustle of a comic book beneath the covers after lights-out from a hundred feet away, it seemed. Alfred was, in fact, not the only one who thought him peculiar and certainly wasn't the author of the rumour that Kirkland wasn't human, more likely some sort of scary sentient robot built by the Army (which secretly Alfred hoped was the truth because that would be So. Cool.)._

_Of course, this wasn't the case, as Alfred discovered five weeks into his basic training. It was past two in the morning and he'd gone stumbling out of the barracks in the dark to use the bathroom and get a drink of water; and, on his way back clutching his tin mug, he saw the light from under the door of the hospital wing. This in itself wasn't unusual, of course, with doctors and nurses and auxiliary staff coming to and fro at all hours._

_Arthur Kirkland slipping out through the door clutching several bags of medical blood was, however._

_Alfred, his breath in his throat, followed him, already recounting the wildness of this tale to the rest of the guys come morning; that Major Kirkland, what an oddball, why the hell was he stealing medical blood in the middle of the night?! Quiet, barefoot, Alfred tailed him all the way through the neat barracks to the officers' quarters; and here he ducked behind a corner as Kirkland checked the corridor up and down before creaking open the door to his room and slipping within with his prize._

_Alfred crept after him; though he didn't really know why he was pursuing the matter to this length, given that these single rooms had no windows on this side of the corridor, so he hadn't a hope in hell of seeing just what Kirkland was up to with those blood-bags. Still, he paused outside Kirkland's door, flat-backed to the wall, and went quiet, listening for the rip of plastic, the gurgle of blood..._

_Nothing. _

_Frowning, Alfred inched over, leaning against the door as quietly as he could; but even with his ear pressed flat against the wood, he couldn't hear a thing. How strange. Had Kirkland heard him? Seen him, perhaps? Maybe he should knock-_

_The door opened and Alfred lost his balance, tumbling forwards into the room. He landed in a twisted heap at Arthur Kirkland's feet, clutching at his elbow with a hiss._

_"Good evening, Jones," Kirkland said coldly, looking down at him. _

_Something about him was somehow suddenly terrifying and Alfred did his best to scramble away from him._

_"M-Major Kirkland, I-I'm sorry, I was just-"_

_"Oh, no, do come in." Kirkland seized Alfred by the collar and easily dragged him the rest of the way over the threshold. "I absolutely insist."_

_He slammed the door shut and tossed Alfred into the middle of the floor; and then he bolted the door and crossed back to his desk, stepping over Alfred._

_"I'm sorry," he said breezily, "you've caught me at a bit of a bad time. I'm hungry, you see, and, well... I may not be on my best behaviour."_

_"...Hungry?" Alfred raised himself a little, looking up at Kirkland as he sank into his chair._

_"Would you stay down?" Kirkland motioned with his hand. "As low as possible, there's a good lad. You don't want your throat in my line of sight."_

_"My... throat?" Alfred did lower himself once more, straining his neck to watch Kirkland; who had lifted a glass from the handsome desk, a clear crystal-cut tumbler filled almost to the brim with a thick, darkly-red liquid. _

_"Well, yes." Kirkland rolled his green eyes. "Bit thick, aren't you? Isn't it obvious to you that I'm a vampire?"_

_He drank and Alfred felt his stomach turn._

_"Th-there's no such thing as a vampire," he said faintly, unable to tear his gaze from the sight of Kirkland's white throat pulsing as he swallowed the blood. "...You're just a crazy sicko who drinks blood!"_

_Kirkland paused for breath, his bottom lip rose-red._

_"Alas," he said, "if only you were right."_

_He yawned, too late in covering it; and Alfred saw them then, glistening scarlet, the elongated teeth driven to fine, inhuman points. _

_"Oh, Jesus H. Christ," Alfred whispered, wide-eyed; quite forgetting himself and backing away rather hurriedly, finding himself against the cot._

_"Please don't panic," Kirkland groaned. "It gets your heartrate going and that sort of thing drives me crazy." He swilled the rest of the blood around the glass and finished it off._

_"Th-then what do you suggest I do?!" Alfred burst out._

_"Just be quiet," Kirkland said, licking his bottom lip clean. "I'm still hungry. I beg that you don't provoke me."_

_Alfred watched in horror as the vampire reached for another blood packet and bit it open, squeezing the innards into the emptied glass._

_"Are you going to kill me?" he asked quietly, watching his white fist around the plastic skin._

_"No," Kirkland said. "That would be far too much of a hassle; your absence would be noticed and I wouldn't have anywhere to dump your body, besides." He paused, the glass against his bottom lip. "...That is, of course, provided that you can keep your gob shut."_

_He took a sip._

_"You can, I trust?"_

_"Yes, sir, absolutely." Alfred looked at the floorboards, trembling. He had never been so frightened in all his life. _

_"Good, I'm glad that that's settled." Kirkland tilted his head at him. "Now get out and get the hell back to bed or I'll have you running laps for a week."_

_Alfred scrambled up and stumbled across the room, not taking his eyes off Kirkland; who watched him wih amusement over the rim of his glass. Alfred was deeply unsettled by his manner._

_"Why'd you admit it to me?" he asked, backing towards the door. "Why not just open the door and tell me to get lost? Why drag me in here and __**show **__me, I-"_

_"You followed me from the hospital wing," Kirkland interrupted. "I know you saw me take the blood bags; and if I don't show you the horror of my true purpose then I leave you to your own devices and that could potentially be more damaging. You tell someone who tells someone who tells someone and it gets out, you know, and then I have to explain myself in front of ten officials. I don't want to have to deal with that." He shrugged. "Besides, I know you watch me, I know you think I'm strange; and now you know why."_

_"M-maybe I'll tell everyone anyway and-"_

_"Our bargain aside, nobody would believe you."_

_"They... they must have noticed the blood-bags going missing!" Alfred groped for the door handle. "And your teeth are a pretty good indication-"_

_Kirkland was out of his seat like a bolt of lightning, seizing Alfred by the throat and pinning him against the door one-handed with a monstrous strength Alfred didn't possess in his entirety._

_"Forgive me," he spat, his eyes flaring a chemical green, "but it seems to me that you are threatening me."_

_Alfred couldn't speak, Kirkland's palm crushing his windpipe. His heels scraped against the wall as he dangled._

_"I've survived for almost five hundred years," Kirkland went on coldly. "What can __**you **__do, you stupid little boy? Do you really think that telling tales on me about a few missing blood bags will be enough to uncover me?"_

_He grinned suddenly._

_"Besides," he said, "if we're going down that road, I have my __**own **__ammunition. You must be off your rocker if you think I believe even for a moment that you're eighteen." Still holding Alfred by the neck, he turned and tossed him to the floor. "You're bloody fifteen at most." _

_"Sixteen," Alfred rasped, rolling over. "I'm... sixteen-"_

_"Yes, well, sixteen is still two years too young," the vampire hissed, his bloodied teeth glinting. "If you want to keep your rank and your fucking __**head**__, I suggest you keep your mouth shut."_

_He stomped to the door and unlocked it, holding it open._

_"Now get __**out**__."_

_Alfred scrambled up and darted past him, his heart pounding as he skittered into the hall. He heard Kirkland slam the heavy door behind him and didn't stop, running all the way back to the barracks. He slipped inside and leaned back against the door, panting with terror._

_Those teeth and those eyes... and that monstrous strength..._

_"Jones?" Pearson, a burly guy in his mid-twenties in the bed nearest the door, was sitting up, squinting at him the dark. "What the hell are you doing?"_

_"Nothing." Alfred stumbled away from the door. "J-just getting some water."_

_"Well, get back into bed." Pearson rolled over. "You know Kirkland prowls around at night."_

_This was enough to make Alfred run for his cot and hide under the covers. His heart still thundered in his ribcage._

_His father had fought in the First World War and had told him of the horrors of war; and so Alfred had been expecting to see dreadful things out here-_

_He hadn't been expecting to find them here._

* * *

_For the next few weeks, Alfred avoided Major Kirkland as much as he could. It wasn't difficult to manage, given that Kirkland seemed to be giving him a wide berth in return, but when they did cross paths, Alfred lowered his gaze, not wanting to meet those eyes._

_He found, however, that living alongside the sort of monster that belonged in nightmares was not as terrible as he had anticpated (now that he knew). Granted, there was something a little bit off about Kirkland, which Alfred had noticed before, but he was professional and efficient in his role and a highly-skilled soldier. Alfred, though he was revulsed - and even afraid - still found himself thinking no less of Kirkland as a commanding officer._

_He waited with bated breath to be seized by other officers and interrogated about his age and his papers; and subsequently tossed out bag and baggage and sent back to the States in disgrace. It didn't come, however, and eventually he relaxed into the conclusion that Kirkland considered their bargain a fair one and had no intention of outing Alfred as underage so long as __**he **__kept quiet about the blood bags._

_So he __**did **__keep quiet and they co-existed more-or-less peacefully at arm's length._

_Then, on a Thursday evening in September, there was a sudden flurry of panic and a large squadron of Jeeps around the hospital. There had been a crash at a nearby airbase with dozens wounded and they needed blood for transfusions; and the whole sum of it was taken away in crates with many of the young privates watching._

_Alfred, incidentally, was very curious to see what effect this was going to have on Kirkland, whom he suspected of being hungry because he was nastier than usual._

_Kirkland's response, incidentally, was to lock himself in his room the following day._

_Of course, being a lowly private still undergoing training, Alfred didn't hear much; though he saw other officers discussing Kirkland's condition in low, grave voices, and many days later, eventually rumours made their way around the barracks. Apparently Kirkland was deathly ill, they'd had the doctor out to him and the good man had never seen anything like it and didn't know what to prescribe. There were suggestions, spoken in hushed tones, that he might die, he was that weak, and that he ought to be sent home._

_Alfred, of course, knew that he was simply hungry and had had his food source taken away._

_Alfred lay awake that night, worried half to death; not because he really thought Kirkland was going to die - but because he suspected that a vampire could go only so long without blood before snapping. What if Kirkland killed someone because he was starving? What if one wasn't enough? What if he killed two or three...?_

_His courage failed him, however, and he didn't get out of bed, merely huddled beneath his sheets. What was he meant to do, go and offer himself to Kirkland as a sacrifice? Time and time over he thought that this was the best thing to do, the most noble and heroic, but he couldn't bring himself to move, trembling at the thought of those gleaming eyes and dreadful teeth._

_He ought to. He ought to because he was the only one who knew what Kirkland truly was. He was the only one who knew what was wrong with him._

_Morning came and he woke with an aching neck, having fallen asleep curled up in a ball. He rose and went to wash and dress, uncharacteristically quiet._

_"What's the matter with you, Jones?" Pearson asked, pulling on his shirt. "You're usually up with the lark and twice as loud."_

_Alfred gave an apologetic shake of his head._

_"Sorry, I... had a bad dream, I guess..."_

_"Well, hurry up or you'll be late!"_

_There was news at breakfast: not of a drained corpse, as Alfred had feared, but of a blood drive that afternoon to replenish the stocks. People from nearby towns would be coming to give blood, too, and the congregation from the local parish._

_Alfred spent the morning trying to read his comic books, envisioning Kirkland smelling all that blood and coming bursting out of his room, savage and animal, tearing nurses apart to get to the stockpile, drinking bags and bags of it in his uncontrollable hunger._

_He shuddered. He __**had **__to do something, he knew; and prayed that he would be able to act fast enough._

_He was one of the first in line for the blood drive, giving his name and rank and blood type (hoping that they wouldn't be able to tell his actual age from his blood). He was B negative, so he was taken by a nurse to the back of the large tent they had set up and sat down in a chair while she looked over her paperwork and set up her needle._

_"Given blood before, love?"_

_She was making cheery chatter to calm him, distract him, and he was grateful for it; though his nerves were on edge not because of the needle but because of what he planned to do._

_"Never once," he replied weakly, watching her rolled up his shirt sleeve and rub alcohol over the crook of his elbow._

_"It's alright." She got out her tape. "It doesn't hurt for long."_

_This was something of a lie, because it did hurt for the duration and he hissed and looked away. She got a pint from him and gave him a biscuit afterwards and sent him on his way; though he loitered in the vicinity long enough to watch her put his blood into bags, write his name and type on it and put them in a tray._

_Outside the tent, he could see orderlies pushing trollies stacked with these trays, taking them over to the main hospital block. He followed, languid, trying not to draw suspicion, and slipped into the block. The place was so busily aflurry that he went unnoticed, following a particular orderly a few metres behind. He waited at the corner of a corridor, watching the man enter a room with the trolley. The orderly was gone for a few minutes, and beyond the cracked door there came a methodic, metallic clattering, and then he returned with the trolley and the empty trays._

_Alfred noticed that the door, although closed, was left unlocked, likely due to the high volume of coming and going. _

_He ducked out of sight as the orderly bustled past and then, when it was clear, slipped around the corner and sidled up to the room. He glanced quickly this way and that before trying the handle, finding it stiff and cold beneath his hand. He pushed it down and the door swung open._

_It was cold in the room beyond and his breath clouded before him as he stepped within. It was a plain room with a low plaster ceiling and two strip-lights. Tall metal cabinets with tens of drawers stood to attention, closely-packed in along the lengths of the walls._

_He went to the first one and inched open one of the drawers. There was a few blood bags nestled within; he was on surnames beginning with 'C'. He knew his own blood wouldn't have been brought over yet and didn't have much time to waste. He went along the drawers until he found one with quite of lot of bags in it - 'S' surnames - so that his taking of a couple wouldn't be missed. He stuck three in his pockets, closed the drawer and slipped out of the room._

_He took the back way out of the hospital block and cut across the track to the officers' barracks. His heart began to hammer in his ribcage as he made his way towards Kirkland's room. What woud he find when he got there? Suppose Kirkland was long gone? Nobody had seen him for days - he might have left and gone hunting for fresh blood elsewhere._

_...Suppose Kirkland had __**died**__? Was Alfred to stumble upon his dried-up corpse on the floor of the room, having starved to death?_

_...Suppose Kirkland ignored the blood-bags in his manic hunger and went straight for Alfred instead?_

_By the time he got to Kirkland's quarters, he was so wound up that he could manage only the most timid of knocks (and to do this he had to well up all of his courage). Truth be told, he wasn't even expecting an answer-_

_The door creaked open the smallest of gaps and Kirkland's green eyes gleamed at him from the blackness within._

_"Give them to me," Kirkland hissed at him. "I can smell them."_

_"O-oh." Alfred fumbled in his pockets, managing to pull out one of the bags; he no sooner had it in his hand before Kirkland reached through the narrow gap and snatched it from him._

_The door slammed shut again, leaving Alfred on the other side._

_"Uh..." Alfred cleared his throat, the other two bags weighing heavily in his uniform pockets. "...Do you... want the other two...?"_

_No answer. Despite his fear of the creature on the other side of the door, Alfred could nonetheless feel himself getting a little annoyed. He turned and put his back against the door, sinking down into a seated position._

_"You could have at least said thank you," he grumbled, folding his arms._

_Silence for another long moment; and then the door opened again and he tumbled, landing on his back. He dazedly shook his head, fixing his skewed glasses to look up at Kirkland._

_"You can come in now," Kirkland said. He walked away. "Close the door behind you, won't you?"_

_Alfred rolled over and knelt up, watching Kirkland go to the desk. He looked awful; his hair was more dishevelled than usual, his issue shirt looked like he'd been wearing it for days, he was thin and exhausted and so white he was almost ghostlike._

_His chin was stained red, however._

_Pushing the door shut with his foot, Alfred got to his feet and dusted himself down. Kirkland had gone to his desk and was sitting in his chair, watching Alfred expectantly (Alfred noticed him rocking back and forth a little, as if impatient)._

_Silence._

_"You do, of course, have my most sincere gratitude," Kirkland said after a moment. His voice was hoarse, strained, and he leaned forward in his seat. "...Give me the others. I can smell them on you. Type A, Type O. It's driving me mad."_

_Alfred took them out one by one, inching over and tossing them onto the edge of the desk. Kirkland reached for one immediately, biting it open. Unlike the last time, which had been quite the sophisticated affair, he simply gulped it straight from the pack. It made Alfred sick to watch so he looked at the wall instead._

_"Where did you get it?" Kirkland asked between bags._

_"There's a blood drive going on," Alfred mumbled. "There was an accident at an airbase and they needed to take our blood stockpiles - so they're replenishing them today." He looked up at the vampire. "...Couldn't you smell it?"_

_"I've been so hungry that my senses have been somewhat dulled. I could only smell it on you when you were a few feet from my door."_

_"Oh." Alfred glanced up, watching as Kirkland drained the last of the third and final bag. "...Will that be enough?"_

_"Enough to bring me back from the brink, at the very least." The vampire ran his tongue over his bottom lip. "...I was getting very close to doing something drastic."_

_"Don't vampires feed from the living?" Alfred asked; he couldn't help it, his curiousity getting the better of him._

_"Ideally," Kirkland said, "but it's not very practical, especially not at close quarters like this. And I don't like to kill if I can help it, that gets terribly messy."_

_"So you're... a __**good **__vampire?"_

_Kirkland pulled a face, running his hands through his hair._

_"I'm sensible, rather," he replied. "And I like the army - so I'm willing to make sacrifices."_

_"They said... you were going to die."_

_Kirkland snorted._

_"Certainly," he agreed, "I was very weak - but I wouldn't have died. We can go for weeks without feeding; although I don't feed every day as it is, which may have accounted for my condition." He looked pointedly at Alfred. "With all that said, I am very grateful to you, Jones. If my hunger had gotten the better of me... well, who knows what I might have done."_

_"Well..." Alfred looked at the floor. "Th-that's alright, sir..."_

_(He thought it best not to mention that he had acted only out of fear that Kirkland __**would **__go on a crazy killing spree.)_

_"I do hope no-one saw you," Kirkland went on. _

_"No, sir." Alfred shook his head. "I was careful."_

_"Hmm." Kirkland reached for a packet of cigarettes on the desk, lighting up. He offered Alfred the packet. "Want one?"_

_"Sure, I guess." Alfred came a little closer still, reaching for the proffered pack to take one. Kirkland held up the lighter, beckoning for him to lean down._

_He did so; though not without a moment's hesitation. He recalled Kirkland's words of a few weeks before, 'You don't want your throat in my line of sight'._

_When he did lean close and Kirkland snapped the flame to life, the glow surged on his white face and Alfred saw the line between his eyebrows and the black flutter of his eyelashes and the pale curve of his lip. It was alarming, in fact, and it took Alfred aback._

_Perhaps intercepting his thoughts, Kirkland glanced up at him._

_"You know," he said quietly, "I'm not a monster."_

_Alfred said nothing to this and pulled back with his cigarette. He drew on it nervously, leaning against the desk._

_"You're very young," Kirkland went on, "and even though you're in the army, all you've seen so far is basic training. You haven't seen war yet. You haven't seen how terrible men really are. The world is a very cruel place."_

_Alfred snorted, looking away._

_"Is that your way of saying it's okay to drink blood?" he asked._

_"Not exactly." Kirkland paused, sighing out a mouthful of smoke. "I suppose you realise that I was human once, too."_

_"That's the way of it, isn't it?"_

_"Well, quite - though I must ask you to put any notions of vampires you may have read about out of your head. Vampires do not create other vampires. Men did this to me, Jones."_

_Alfred frowned._

_"Was it... a punishment or something?"_

_Kirkland looked thoughtful, tapping off his ash._

_"You know," he said, "I've never thought about it that way. ...It's hard to say whether or not I __**deserved **__it given that it's not all bad."_

_"...Do you like being a vampire?"_

_Kirkland shrugged._

_"As I say, it's not all bad," he said. "Certainly it has its drawbacks, what with the diet and all, and I've been hunted too many times to count; but I've also lived to see wonderful inventions, read great literature and meet some very influential people. I've seen more of the world than most anyone you might care to think of - and I've seen both the good and the bad, therefore."_

_"You're immortal, then?" Alfred fidgeted with his cigarette._

_"It's more that I'm already dead." Kirkland tilted his head. "But it's alright, you know. Living forever, in a manner of speaking, is wonderful as long as you don't mind being alone."_

_This, of course, could lend itself to only one question:_

_"And do __**you **__mind being alone?"_

_Kirkland grinned at him. His teeth showed in it._

_"Thus far," he said, "I think I've made quite the art of it."_

* * *

_Alfred hadn't expected to become friends with Major Arthur Kirkland; but indeed, the vampire - who insisted his indebtedness - was peculiarly loyal and began to treat Alfred most favourably, giving him his rations (except for the cigarettes) and inviting him to his room in the evening to talk. Having lived for almost five centuries, Arthur was very interesting and kept Alfred rapt long into the night with his vivid tales of drunken bar brawls with Shakespeare and Jonson; and his days on the high seas when he'd gotten bored and strapped for cash and turned to piracy for a while. He seemed to have come out of himself and admitted as much, in fact, confessing that nobody had found him this inspiring in a good long while. It seemed to Alfred, actually, that he hadn't had a friend for much too long; and Arthur agreed and said that he had friends in ghosts and other vampires and the like, certainly, but they all had their own tales of woe like millstones around their necks._

_Alfred had never been a particularly strong reader, either; and Arthur was happy to read to him all sorts of wonderful books that Alfred had never heard of and would never have been able to tackle on his own. He read him all the great classics: Chaucer, Milton, Spenser, Malory, and all the Romantics besides, the poems of Wordsworth and Coleridge and Keats and Byron, and the modern greats like Dickens; and on Alfred's insistence they read some of the famous American writers, Irving and Hawthorne and Melville and Whitman. Alfred liked the King Arthur stories best, in Malory's _Le Morte d'Arthur _and Spenser's _The Fairie Queene _and Tennyson's _The Idylls of the King.

_He supposed he liked them because Arthur had said he could call him by his name when they were alone; and the stories stayed with him long after he'd gone back to the barracks and curled up in his cot, filling his dreams with knights in splendid armour and ladies in lakes and swords pulled from stones._

_(He also liked Coleridge's poem 'Christabel'. It was about a vampire.)_

_The more time he spent with Arthur, the more he came to understand his words: "I'm not a monster" - and these had been spoken pleadingly, Alfred realised, a whisper in the dark to beg of someone, anyone, to understand._

_One night in the summer, they lay on their backs in the close-cut grass and looked up at the clear sky, alight with fistfuls of stars. It was almost the end of Alfred's training. In September he would be heading out to the mainland with his pack and his rifle and his dogtags, two, one for the neck and one to be worn in the boot - in case his head was separated from his body._

_"Do you want to come with me?" Arthur asked. It was sudden, quiet._

_Alfred turned his head on the grass, looking at him. He was pale and cold in the close air like a glacier._

_"Come with you where?" Alfred asked, digging his heels into the grass. He twisted them back and forth, making grooves in the dry ground._

_"Down to London." A pause. "I mean when your training is over, of course."_

_"What's down in London?"_

_"The War Office. I'm involved with them: intelligence, that sort of thing." Arthur yawned. "Whatever they need me for, really."_

_Alfred pushed himself up on his elbows._

_"What, you're like... special ops?"_

_"Something like that. I do have the credentials by now, after all." Arthur tilted his head to grin at him. "I admit I miss the battlefield, though."_

_Alfred understood. Arthur meant to spare his life. Though it wasn't necessarily a guarantee that he would die in battle, the odds weren't in his favour; they weren't much in the favour of anyone, he supposed, least of all newly-trained rookies._

_...Well, except for immortal soldiers._

_"What... what if you turned me?" he asked quietly, rolling over. _

_"Out of the question," Arthur replied sharply. _

_"Why? Surely it makes sense, I mean, I would be-"_

_"I'd have to kill you first," Arthur cut in coldly, "and even then I've never done it before. I might botch it and-"_

_"I-I trust you, Arthur."_

_"Well, I don't." Arthur rolled onto his side. "Please don't bring this up again, Alfred."_

_Alfred sighed, looking to the sky once more. The sound of chatter and laughter from the mess hall carried on the clear air._

_"Everyone would think I was an awful coward if I took an office job," he said._

_"It would be a promotion," Arthur said, still with his back to him. "...Besides, who said it would be an office job?"_

_Alfred frowned, confused._

_"But you-"_

_"There's more to this war than bombing raids, lad. I suppose the real question is do you want to make an actual contribution or do you want to be shot to pieces trying to claim back a square metre of French beach?"_

_Alfred scowled._

_"I'm glad you don't talk to the rest of the guys like that," he said._

_"I hear a white lie or two is good for morale."_

_Alfred sat up, crossing his legs._

_"Why are you doing all this for me?" he asked. "All I did was steal a couple of blood bags for you once-"_

_"I like you. I want you to survive this war - and I want to keep you with me so I can protect you if need be." Arthur shrugged. "You don't have to accept my offer if it bothers you but I do hope you'll at least consider it. You have potential, Alfred - you would do well at Whitehall."_

_Alfred paused. He didn't know quite what to say._

_"Do you... really think so?" he asked softly._

_Arthur finally sat up, too, looking at him. He seemed puzzled._

_"Of course I do," he said. "You're bright and adept, one of the fastest learners I've ever seen - and you know how to think on your feet, too. I wouldn't say you're always the most sensible but-"_

_"Gee, no-one's ever said anything like that to me before," Alfred said, more to himself. "All my teachers at school said I was dumb and wouldn't amount to much."_

_"That's ridiculous," Arthur said icily. He reached out, taking Alfred's hand. "Alfred, do come with me. I came from a poor farming village in Medieval England; I only learnt to read because I joined a monastery. Fate has been as kind as she has been cruel to me. You and I... could do great things together."_

_Alfred looked down at the vampire's white hand clutched tightly around his own. His heart beat against his breastbone._

_"I thought," he said slowly, a teasing grin quirking at his mouth, "that you __**liked **__being alone, Dracula? An art - wasn't that what you said?"_

_Arthur exhaled. His smile was gentle and tired because he wasn't a monster._

_"Perhaps," he said, "I was waiting to be found."_

* * *

Of course it was only a matter of time before there was a HUGE FLASHBACK. (**saketini **even guessed the - predictable- method, lololol)

There is a bit more to their past than this, some of which will be tackled in the next chapter!

...Whenever that is. T.T


End file.
